


Slow Boat to China

by Laramie, LinkWorshiper



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Kidnapping, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Language, Revenge, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 11:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 79,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5455265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laramie/pseuds/Laramie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinkWorshiper/pseuds/LinkWorshiper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though Jimmy Kent has found success and fortune since moving on from Downton, he has never been able to forgive Lady Anstruther for the troubles she's caused him in the past. Motivated by a burning desire for revenge, Jimmy takes action - and enlists the help of the one person he's ever trusted. </p><p>Naturally that person is Thomas Barrow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a conversation Link had with Jenn-Aileen on Tumblr, through which ridiculously large magnifying lenses were placed over Jimmy's awkward roll through the sheets with Lady A. Well, Jenn, you wanted a ridiculous revenge story? Done. 
> 
> Laramie and Link are writing this together, with Thomas bits mostly done by Laramie and Jimmy bits mostly done by Link, and everyone else just a crazy slurry of the two. Actually the whole thing is just a crazy mix of the two of us, so hopefully it's seamless. The plus side is how hilariously fast working together gets writing done. HILARIOUSLY FAST. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you guys enjoy! As per usual, it's shaping up to be a monster.

It was the looks that got him in the end. Thomas hadn't cared at first -- he hadn't cared about almost anything, really -- but the more time passed the angrier their shallow pity made him. They had nearly killed him -- and now they looked at him as though it was his own terrible fault. As though they were such wonderful people for accepting someone who was practically a convict into their midst -- his attraction to men had already been enough to land him in unlawful waters, and now there was his attempt to end his own life to add to the rap sheet.

They had, admittedly, lied for him, practically all of them. They had lied about him kissing a man a few years before. Now they lied that he had flu, as though he could be in bed for a week and emerge unscathed, unchanged. It kept him safe – but it chained him. It trapped him on a prisoner’s wheel, doomed to make each day a carbon copy of the last, making no progress no matter how diligently he stepped. They surrounded him in such a falsehood that everything they said to him was fake. They were fake. Their sympathy was fake.

It was this, more than anything else, that spurred his efforts to find another job. He wanted to start afresh, without the ankle-chain of his history here. Even if he had to leave Yorkshire, the only place he had ever loved, and Phyllis, the only person who loved him.

Well. There was Jimmy. But a handful of letters did not a love story make, much as Thomas might wish it. So he was striking out on his own, taking control of his life in a way he had not attempted since the war ended. He had only two days left at Downton: on Saturday, he would be travelling to work in Durham, in a _shop_. It felt like taking massive steps backwards, but the owner was elderly and childless and had hinted that he was looking for someone to run the business in his old age -- and perhaps, one day, to inherit it.

He did not have to stay there, anyway, as Phyllis kept reminding him. _Getting out_ was his priority. This would enable him to do so.

That Thursday afternoon, he sat playing chess with Andy. In his long-sleeved shirt, the evidence of Thomas’s injuries were invisible, but certainly not unfelt. He was absurdly conscious of them with every piece he moved.

“You alright?” Andy asked in a low voice.

If one more person asked him that, Thomas would add murder to his list of criminal tendencies. He ignored the question, stopped rubbing his itchy wrist and took one of Andy’s knights.

Just as Andy was moaning that Mr. Barrow _always_ took his _bloody_ knights, a person walked into the servants’ hall. A very handsome person, whose face was a great comfort to Thomas. A person whom Thomas had not seen in the flesh for a year and a half.

Jimmy Kent walked back into Thomas’s life with a nervous smile and a strange look in his eyes.

 

 


	2. Working Class Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy's got his back up against the wall. He needs a little help from his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is totally Link's fault that this didn't get posted up on its intended schedule, which is on Fridays. She was too busy being a lazy slob on holiday to even know what day of the week it is, but she promises that she'll get it together for the future. (She has insisted this pretty much every day of her life; let us believe it now

 

Jimmy Kent never entered a room without a presence, though sometimes it took an expert to know it. His movements were strong, even with the way he swept his fedora off by its wide brim and settled it over crossed arms as he marched straight up to the table and loomed over the chessboard. The afternoon sunlight dumping in through the window shafts pushed his shadow much further across the length of the table than it had a right to be, far more menacing and long than his short stature usually dragged at its feet. He waited in silence for a cue neither Thomas or Andy seemed to be sure of, fidgeting in a mood that loitered somewhere between impatience, anxiousness and irritation.

At length, just as Andy was about to pluck up his queen, his intention for it obvious to even the most amateur player, Jimmy intervened and selected one of Andy’s unused pawns, pushing it forward its inaugural two squares. And while Andy was spent, grimacing at the board as he tried to figure out what exactly Jimmy had done and why, Thomas neatly swerved into Andy’s back garrison with a forgotten bishop, and created a rather uncomfortable situation for his king’s last line of defense. Andy shot Jimmy a particularly ungrateful frown; Thomas just leaned back and chuckled as three easy avenues for checkmate became open to him.

“Jimmy Kent, at your service,” Jimmy introduced himself to Andy, who looked even goofier than he’d imagined after reading of him in Thomas’s letters. He supposed it was refreshing to think that the world’s nice, simple folk had more variations than tall, ginger and Alfred. He graced Thomas with a look, but nothing more; they had long since lost the need to verbalise their communication whilst standing in the same place -- a nuance that Jimmy was rather relieved to find still intact. He settled down in Thomas’s favourite rocker to wait -- and heckle.

Jimmy wasn’t sure what Andy’s skill level was with chess, but he knew that Thomas had always been particularly amazing at it. When they used to play together, it often became a clash of strategic wit versus cheap trickery -- though the assignation of those particular roles often swapped multiple times before a single match was through. Considering Jimmy’s current predicament and his reasons for dropping in on the Abbey as he was, it was a considerable relief to see that Thomas hadn’t lost his gift for either quick thinking or underhanded victory. He tapped a well-heeled shoe nervously against the flagstones as he waited for the game to conclude, the crown of his fedora losing its peak the more he fiddled with it in his nervousness. Jimmy had come up in the world, but even a nice tweed suit and a silver pocket watch couldn’t mask the insecure young man underneath.

Andy lost a rook, and Jimmy made a pistol with three inwardly curled fingers and a stiff thumb and pointer; he aimed it at the chessboard and made a popping noise with inflated cheeks and a bout of dark laughter. Andy was not amused; Thomas smirked again, and then moved his own rook into a blocking position. Thomas announced the threat to Andy’s king, and Andy groaned at the board, staring at it as though doing so would somehow undo his imminent doom. Jimmy got up and sauntered back to the edge of the table, eager to see the dagger driven into its happy sheath. He had urgent business with Thomas -- urgent _private_ business.

“Checkmate,” Jimmy announced after Andy’s next, inevitable play -- a grim, suicidal manoeuvre that circumstance had forced his hand to. Thomas ceremoniously knocked over Andy’s king with the base of his capturing queen, and Jimmy said to the losing footman, “Now _get_ , will you?”

He snapped his fingers rudely at him until the message sunk in.

“Now, now,” Thomas admonished, but there was a tiny smirk in the corner of his mouth. Meanwhile, Andy scowled, and got to his feet.

“Who are you, anyway?” Andy demanded.

“An old friend of mine,” Thomas explained before Jimmy could jump in with more impertinence.

“You’d better be less rude to _him_ than you are to _me_ ,” Andy said. “The last thing he needs -”

“Just get _gone_ , Andy,” Thomas interrupted abruptly.

Something about Thomas’s tone seemed to spook the young footman, and he hurriedly gathered himself and quick-stepped out of the servants’ hall like he’d just found out the King was visiting on the other side of the house. Jimmy eyed Thomas carefully, noting the fact that their newfound solitude wasn’t enough to relax his companion. It needled at Jimmy suspiciously, though he couldn’t quite work out what it was that stood out as alarming to him. Not yet, anyway.

But there would be plenty of time to play catch up and lower himself down into the bottomless well of Thomas Barrow’s untold secrets. There was something a little bit more pressing at hand, and it was hard for him to keep his mind off it any longer than he had to. Still, Thomas was his best friend in the whole world, and he respected him enough to at least ease into the situation. So he split his cherubic lips into a wide smile that hadn’t stretched his face since around the time Lady Anstruther had come to visit -- and subsequently ruined his life -- and said as casually as he could muster, “Been keepin’ on alright around here? Not too bored?” He gave the doorway Andy had just exited through a significant stare, adding, “Crushin’ the flavour of the week in your iron fist, is it?”

Thomas stood up and held out his hand. “It’s good to see you, Jimmy.”

After so much time apart and alone as they were, Jimmy made the impulsive decision to throw proper decorum out the window. He ignored Thomas’s proffered hand and instead wrapped both his arms around Thomas’s middle, pressing the side of his face into the velvet collar of Thomas’s livery coat as the intensity of his hold tightened meaningfully around the underbutler’s torso. There was no returning hug from Thomas.

“I really missed you, you mardy bum,” Jimmy muttered into the lush fabric, hoping Thomas didn’t hear him, but sort of praying that he might. “I really, really did.”

He gave another squeeze and then pulled away, clearing his throat and replacing his moment of sentiment with a much more masculine clap on the shoulder, which fell away almost immediately. Jimmy let his eyes flit up towards the ceiling with seeming distraction; he muddled the form of his fedora with the finger movements to _Love Me Or Leave Me_ , and waited.

“Ah,” Thomas said faintly; Jimmy glanced down quickly and imagined he saw a slight bloom of pink in his cheeks. “So. What brings you here?”

“It’s two things, really -- though I s’pose they’ve sort of got to do with one another,” Jimmy began, suddenly feeling very hot under the collar. He awkwardly loosened his tie, which was a bold blue and was speared with a stickpin shaped like a treble clef. “The first thing, is, well, _you_ , really,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound as soppy as he thought he did. He was quick to blaze onwards without daring to catch a look at what Thomas’s face might look like as he spoke; “I’ve sort of found meself in a spot of trouble -- more than a spot, really -- and, well, I thought… who else on God’s green earth could I trust enough to not only help, but also to not totally fuck it up neither.” He chewed on a particularly large mouthful of air before he concluded his spiel with: “Of course the only one is _you,_ Thomas. It’s never goin’ to be anyone but you.”

A smile began to creep onto Thomas’s face, before bleeding into a frown. “What are you after, exactly? How much trouble can you get yourself into that you haven’t even told me about in your letters?” He put two cigarettes out of the pack on the table into his mouth, lit them one after the other, and held one out to Jimmy, continuing to flick the lighter cap off and on as he tucked the packet away again.

Aggressively, Jimmy snapped up the extra cigarette and stuck it between curled lips. Between puffs, he said contrarily, “Yeah, well, did _you_ tell me every little news bulletin that flashed ‘cross your desk?” He didn’t even give Thomas a chance to answer before he cast his judgement on the matter, “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

“I told you everything of importance,” Thomas said steadily. “Now what’s going on?”

Jimmy’s face was cast in darkness as he bent low enough for his well-coiffed hair to flop messily over his eyes. He continued to drag on the cigarette like he was sucking down bravery through every pull. He didn’t speak again until he’d smoked it down to the filter and murdered its remainder in the ashy saucer sitting at Thomas’s end of the chessboard, leaving Thomas to lower his eyebrows at him as he waited.

Then, straightening as much as he could, he jerked on the lapels of his coat, nearly fumbling his hat in the process. He held it close to his chest, like he needed it to catch his hammering heart if it should happen to leap through his ribs, and said, “Y’know how you always used to tell me that it were me temper that would be me downfall?” He took a long pause to settle himself with a breath of air, calmed by the scent of Thomas’s cigarettes, and made his point: “Well, I think I might’ve gone chargin’ over the line. I’ve really done it this time.”

“Jesus, just come out with it. What mess d’you want me moppin’ up for you?”

“Good God, Mr. Barrow! I’d never ask you to do somethin’ so _crass_ ,” Jimmy huffed, his eyes roving Thomas’s person for where he might have stashed his cigarette packet. He hadn’t smoked in a while, but something about sharing the habit with Thomas made handling his troubles a bit easier. Thomas seemed to catch the hint, and produced them from an inside pocket like a magician. Eagerly, Jimmy grabbed for one, snatching the lighter with too much impatience to wait for Thomas to do it up for him.

He slurped the cigarette into place and clicked the lighter on, mumbling around the filter as if the slight garble to his words would make it less of a shock. “No, this is a _real_ problem -- and really, a lot of why I’d want to ask you is ‘cause, well… maybe it’s somethin’ that sort of. _Kind of_ \-- in a way, that is, in a way -- affects you. Maybe. Slightly. A little bit.”

That had sounded good, he thought. He rewarded himself with a particularly long drag.

Thomas’s free hand -- the gloved one -- reached up and rubbed at Thomas’s eyes as if he were weary, before dropping back to his side. A fierce expression graced his features as his eyes returned to Jimmy’s face. “If you don’t get on and explain what you’re talking about then so help me, I will make you _eat_ that bloody cigarette.”

Alright, so maybe it hadn’t sounded as good as Jimmy thought. Truthfully, he knew he was skirting the issue out of embarrassment, since he still wasn’t really sure what Thomas was going to think about the whole affair. He supposed there was no sense in wasting anymore time; he plugged his nose and jumped in feet first.

“So you remember our -- uh, _my_ little run-in with Lady Anstruther?” he began slowly, though he did not dare look at Thomas now. “Y’know, the one what got me sacked and that?”

“How could I forget?” Thomas said quietly.

“Right, well,” Jimmy forged ahead, barely even realizing that Thomas had made an interjection. “You might not have ever guessed it, since I were, y’know, cool as a bloody cucumber in the aftermath and all, but I was more brassed off about that than I’ve ever been about anythin’ in me entire fuckin’ life. Swear to God, Thomas, I was roilin’. Up countless nights thinkin’ up wild things I probably shouldn’t ever repeat if I don’t want to be stood up on a gallows somewhere. I’d never forgive her for what she’d done, cornerin’ me like that, completely destroyin’ me life the moment I finally thought I’d found someo --” Here, Jimmy cleared his throat, except he was also in the middle of trying to take in a lungful of smoke from the cigarette that was still between his lips, so he ended up hacking and wheezing instead, which was perhaps an even better diversion than the one he’d planned.

Thomas reached around and slapped Jimmy on the back a few times, then rubbed a couple of soothing circles against the rough fabric of his jacket before withdrawing his hand.

Recovering a few moments later, eyes slightly teary, Jimmy feigned the very picture of dignity and calm, though it was doubtful anyone outside of Jimmy’s own brain actually fell for it. He continued his tale, “The point is that I couldn’t let the sleepin’ dog lie. I had to make her sorry for what she’d done to me -- _us_ , really.” He toed the ground nervously, hoping Thomas wouldn’t read too much into the comment: they were best friends, after all, so there was no need to worry about it, right? He emphatically berated the point to himself again before proceeding: “So I got to thinkin’, how could I make the bitch pay and stay out of jail while doin’ it, yeah? Real easy stuff.”

Thomas blinked at him, looking shocked as the depths of Jimmy’s hatred for Lady Anstruther were revealed. “But what… Look, I know you were angry, and it’s terrible to lose a job, but Jimmy… well, you made your decision. You knew the risks. Why…” He seemed unable to formulate an ending to the question, though his confusion was written all over his face.

“What I _knew_ were the risks if I didn’t!” Jimmy retorted, not exactly comfortable with expounding these particular details to Thomas, but also aware that he had no choice if Thomas was to understand the extremity of what had come next. “When I were workin’ for her, I was freshly a man, eighteen and just home from the war. She made me feel doubly so with how much attention she gave me. But there’s a point where it were just too much. What started up as a little fun just… stopped bein’ that -- got out of hand. It were nice havin’ her round me finger, I s’pose, but it weren’t worth bein’ her pretty pet forever. I could barely be meself, for God’s sake! So I gave me notice, and I thought that’d be that. Until I got me big head and sent her that bloody Valentine for a laugh, thinkin’ I were safe enough here to do it, and then up she comes, ready to play lady and servant again at the drop of a bloody hat. Do it, or me future at Downton’s out on its head once she spilled me job details with _her_ to Mr. Carson or whoever.” He made a long, gurgling groan in the back of his throat, as if admitting the follies of his youth was the worst punishment God could have saddled him with. He still had trouble meeting Thomas’s eye.

For a long moment, Thomas was quiet. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I didn’t realise… I didn’t realise what was going on. I suppose I thought… that you just wanted a bit of fun. It’s not like…” He broke off and gave a deep sigh. “This still doesn’t explain why you need help _now_.”

“Well, I guess part of it can be chalked up to me own stupid, stupid, terrible luck. His Lordship and the fire and all that,” Jimmy acquiesced with a miniature shrug. “But it still don’t change that she had the bollocks to chase me down over a joke, like she got one whiff of it and comes in, lobbin’ shells and slinkin’ off when the explosion goes off -- _BANG!”_ Jimmy slapped his hands together with a loud clap, making Thomas flinch. The sound had the double effect of reminding Jimmy that he was _still_ stalling. It was time to bite the bullet.

“So ever since, all I could think about was how _once again_ , Lady fuckin’ Anstruther got to play her stupid, mind-twisty games and get off without even a stain on her gaudy frock, while precious plaything Kent takes the fall,” Jimmy said, now speaking with a lot more clarity. “I thought, maybe I ought to give her a taste of her own medicine, see how _she_ likes it when the stuff _she_ cares about gets ripped right out from under her.”

The frown now seemed permanently etched into Thomas’s forehead.

“So I took the train up from London to her estate and crept in round the back -”

“You _what_?” Thomas interrupted. “What were you thinking?”

“I was _thinkin’_ it would be easy as hell -- and it _was_ ,” snapped Jimmy defensively. Part of him wanted to just back out and move on to Plan B, which involved forging papers and permanently getting out of Britain as soon as possible, but that was a lot of work. He’d make the full attempt with Thomas first. “Anyway, I got in through the delivery yard -- a boy in me platoon taught me how to jimmy a lock -- and pushed in through the kitchens. I was admittedly a bit… _zealous_ when I first turned up in there, and with no one to stop me, I made me first stop the gun room -”

“You -- Jimmy, what _\--_ ” Thomas spluttered.

“Double barrel, plenty of shells -- always cleaned and ready to go,” Jimmy spoke right over top of Thomas, afraid to let himself stop in case he never got the nerve to begin again. He forged onwards: “Then I went upstairs to find the bitch. I figured she probably still used the big, fancy room that got all the best morning sun, so I headed that way. The whole time, I kept repeating to myself, ‘ _One crack between the eyes, and then she’ll know how I felt watchin’ everythin’ I care about run through me fingers.’_ ”

Thomas was gaping at him in apparent horror, barely breathing. “You didn’t.”

“One shot, one shot, Thomas! _BAM!”_ He made another violet slap, flat palm against palm, and Thomas winced, though it was hard to tell if it was for the sound or Jimmy’s gory intentions. “I didn’t get that far,” Jimmy said, though he seemed almost disappointed by that fact.

“Thank God,” Thomas murmured faintly. “I couldn’t bear to see you hang.”

An awkward, nervous bell that quickly established itself as Jimmy’s own laughter filled the room. “Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve quite made it out of the woods yet -- and that’s where I might be needin’ the help of someone with your, uh… _expertise_ ,” Jimmy told him, swiveling his fedora in an eternal circle between turning hands. “I found her right enough, but she were awake and we ended up in a scuffle. I didn’t get a shot off, but I got that thing to her back, and that were almost as good. She said she’d scream; I said I’d shoot.”

A gentle touch rested on Jimmy’s shoulder; he realised that Thomas had laid a hand there, as soft as though a small bird had alighted on the tweed.

How much he had missed the comfort of Thomas’s proximity was something Jimmy didn’t need to be reminded of, but it pleased him to be greeted with it all the same, especially when Thomas’s thumb grazed his clothed collarbone. He steeled himself with another heavy breath, this time hoping to breach the final hill. “We were at an impasse, so I just shoved her through the house at gunpoint, not really sure what to do with her. She babbled a lot, beggin’ me to remember all the good times we had, and why would her darlin’ little boy want to hurt her -- all a load of shite,” Jimmy spat, clearly not harboring any love or sentiment for his former employer. “I told her -- I told her that I’d just been a bloody _kid_ , for God’s sake. She fucked me up in the head so bad, I have no idea how a man’s s’posed to be. And I weren’t goin’ to let her sit by on her piles of cash, doin’ however she pleased, while the rest of us lot have to scrounge around, hopin’ we get a lucky break. I told her, time’s are a-changin’: out with the old ways, and in with Jimmy fuckin’ Kent.” Jimmy said most of that last bit on one breath, and had to stop to gasp for air.

Thomas squeezed his shoulder once before letting him go, with an odd mix of pity and something that looked suspiciously like pride on his face. “And then what?” he asked, lighting another pair of cigarettes and offering one to Jimmy.

Jimmy took more comfort in their ritual of sharing smokes, happy to have another one pinched between his knuckles. “So I more or less just herded her out the back door and round back to where they keep the motors. Latched her up in one of the covered ones and rode that thing all the way back to London.” Jimmy stopped to take a puff or two, and then added a detail he was certain Thomas was about to enquire about: “Don’t worry; I made sure to crash the car somewhere far out of town. I doubt anyone’ll find it, especially with the state I left it. I even threw some paraffin and a match on it for extra effect.”

“And… Lady A?” Thomas asked, his voice full of trepidation.

“Oh, don’t worry about her,” Jimmy waved the question off flippantly. “I run a very nice piano repair shop in the West End. Which, of course, is closed due to _personal business_ at present. I locked her down in the basement with the larder and a bunch of blankets. She’ll be fine. I mean, I’ve managed with much _worse_ , anyway.”

Thomas stared at him, then suddenly let out a bark of laughter: “Ha! Are you telling me you’ve got a dowager in your basement?”

Jimmy squared his shoulders, trying to look as casual as possible as he pushed twin plumes of smoke through his nose -- a trick Thomas himself had taught him so many years ago. “I might do,” he said, trying very hard not to grin wickedly.

Apparently making a similar effort, Thomas bit his lower lip, his eyes twinkling where they connected with Jimmy’s.

“So the bit where _you_ come in,” Jimmy said, at last reaching his reason for suddenly alighting on Downton Abbey’s back doorstep like he’d just been kicked out of hell through a crack in the earth. “Is what the blazes do I _do_ with her now? I can’t very well just dump her back at her estate. Half the Yard’ll be up me bum before I can blink. But I ain’t about to just stuff her throat full of lead neither. I’ve come down off _that_ crazy cloud. At least now that I’ve sobered up, anyway.”

“Oh, good,” Thomas said flippantly, trembling with suppressed laughter. “You know, you’re a class A thoughtless git,” he continued, but now his voice was brimming with a sort of wondering fondness. He shook his head in disbelief, never taking his eyes off Jimmy’s face. “What the hell have you done?”

“What more of our lot should’ve started doin’ an age ago,” Jimmy answered automatically. He waved his cigarette around with emphatic flair. He placed the knobs of his thumbs together and then slowly spread them for effect as he said in a mesmerised voice, “Imagine, Jimmy Kent, revolutionary hero who singlehandedly took down the aristocratic class of England. They’ll build statues of me, just you wait. Maybe I’ll get a bank holiday in me honour.”

“Singlehandedly,” Thomas repeated smugly. “And that’s why you’re here, is it -- a bank holiday? Nothing to do with needing my help?”

“I am willing to concede my hero’s status for the erection of statues, but _only_ because you’re handsome enough to add to the effect, but not _so_ handsome you’ll take away from all _this_ ,” Jimmy drew attention to his own face with a flourishing hand.

“I’m not _quite_ sure that’s a compliment,” Thomas responded, but his cheeks seemed a bit flushed. “Jesus, Jimmy. An aristocrat in the bloody basement.”

“Right,” said Jimmy with a slow nod. “Come on, Thomas! I picked you ‘cause you’re quicker than this.”

Thomas pursed his lips and his gaze slid away from Jimmy to fix on the wall behind him. He seemed to be ruminating on the problem, while Jimmy continued to abuse his fedora with nervous impatience. Periodically, ash fell unhindered to the ground.

“Seems to me,” Thomas said at length. “You need a way of keepin’ her quiet once you’ve let her out, and gettin’ her out of your life for good. Preferably in a way that’ll make her sore about what she’s done.”

“Which is why I’m thinkin’ we take a little trip, eh? Me, you and the little lady?” said Jimmy, who had finally taken stock of his hat -- which now looked more like a dented, green hubcap. “I mean, look, how d’ya fancy the Orient? You’re in charge of this old dump -- you could take the time off, yeah?”

Thomas opened his mouth, paused, and closed it again, apparently having no words to fill the void. He squinted and made as if to scratch his head, before taking his hand away from the slicked-back strands. Still, he said nothing.

“Aw, come on! _Think about it_ !” Jimmy exclaimed, his gesticulations so fast, they snuffed out his half-smoked cigarette. “We could just get her some real dowdy rags -- the sort that’d embarrass her royally -- and then drag her across the continent and dump her somewhere like -- I don’t know -- China or somethin’. Then two fingers to the sky and we’re outta there. _And_ as a lovely bonus, I get a holiday with you!” He had thought about it plenty on his own.

“You can’t dump an aristocrat in China,” Thomas said, determined, it seemed, to be the boring voice of reason and ruin Jimmy’s plans for a great trip. “For a start, how are you going to get her there without anyone noticing that she doesn’t want to be?”

“That, my dear friend, is what we call _collateral_ ,” Jimmy said, flinging his ruined hat onto the chessboard, where it upset all the pieces that were still standing on their checkered battlefield.

“ _That_ , dear friend, is called getting arrested for kidnapping before you reach Calais,” Thomas retorted, punctuating the remark by pointing at Jimmy with his cigarette. “What you need is something to make her want to go with you. Somethin’ of hers that’s valuable.”

“Yeah, too bad she don’t got feelin’s, or I’d ransom her for _those_ ,” Jimmy muttered, his eyes swinging across the table in search of Thomas’s lighter so he could respark his cold cigarette. “She took somethin’ more valuable than any stupid snuffbox or jewel or whatever.”

“It might be enough to persuade _her_ , though,” Thomas pointed out, missing the significance of Jimmy’s comment. “Was she wearing any jewellery?”

“Probably,” Jimmy said with a shrug that denoted he hadn’t bothered to look. “I s’pose we can shake her down when we get back to London.”

“You want me to drop everything and go to London with you,” Thomas summarised flatly.

Jimmy sagged forward with exaggeration, his eyes almost vanishing beneath his long lashes as he rolled them upwards. “ _No_ , Thomas. What I want is for you to come _away_ with me, China or, or, I don’t know, India. Wherever you want.” There was an unspoken _‘obviously’_ stuck somewhere between the phrases.

“Did it ever occur to you I’ve got things to do here?” Thomas wore a frown that was difficult to decipher.

Jimmy wasn’t particularly bothered by it, and merely shrugged it off, saying, “What, being a stinking underbutler at a place where nobody likes you as much as --” He tripped up, catching the thought as it attempted to go charging by without his consent. Hoping his pause wasn’t nearly as long as it seemed, he readjusted his sails, and said instead: “as they should?”

“I’ve got another job. I’m not staying here; I’m going to Durham on Saturday.”

“Excuse me?” Jimmy was floored by the announcement. Thomas might as well have told him he’d been named Prince of Wales.

“I’ve got a job. In Durham. It’s, ah, a good one. Lots of… prospects.” Thomas rubbed his forearm, fidgeting uncomfortably. “I could go a long way.”

“Sounds like shit,” assessed Jimmy.

Thomas dropped his gaze to the floor, looking unexpectedly knocked back by Jimmy’s opinion. He seemed to have lost about a foot of height. “It’ll be fine,” he murmured uncertainly.

“More fine than takin’ a trip to the exotic _Orient_ with your bezzie mate?” Jimmy wondered, an equally unconvinced lift peaking one sharp eyebrow. “You might say I’ve been sent from heaven to _save_ your sorry arse, Barrow. Durham? _Really_?”

“Don’t call me Barrow,” Thomas said, with a strange, pinched expression. “Only Grantham calls me Barrow, and he’s so… bloody _fake._ Which is _why_ … Which is why I’m going to Durham.”

“Lord Grantham’s fake?” Jimmy almost had the nerve to laugh. “Listen to yourself -- _hypocrite_. That’s about the phoniest lot I’ve ever heard you spew. And from someone almost as good at lyin’ as _me_! So, yeah, phony as hell! Phony, phony, phony pho--”

“ _Stop_ it!” Thomas snapped. “I’m not a phony; I’m trying to make a life for myself! And you, if you were my so-called _bezzie mate_ \--” he spat these last words as if they were poison -- “would congratulate me for that!”

“Oh, you want a row, eh?” Jimmy flung what remained of his cigarette into the ash saucer like it was a gauntlet. “Well, let me tell you what _I_ think about that, Thomas _bloody_ Barrow, right? _I_ think you’re just too scared to admit that maybe it takes a little risk to find somethin’ worth enjoyin’, and that this so-called job prospect -- or _whatever_ \-- just sounds like another comfy way to settle into the same old life with the same old people who won’t ever _appreciate_ you for what you are. They might have different names than the lot here, but they won’t be any fuckin’ better, you can count on it.” He sucked in a huge mouthful of air so that he would have the power to shout at the top of his voice: “Go on and _ask me how I bloody well know_!”

Thomas cringed at the volume, or maybe the venom, in Jimmy’s voice, and sank down heavily into a chair at the wooden servants’ table, hiding his face in his hands. “I know,” he said into his palms. “I know they’ll all be the same. But I just can’t… I need a _change_.”

The instinct to make another rude comment was within Jimmy and begging the chance to be let out to its full potential. But when Jimmy saw the defeated way Thomas had collapsed into his seat, another instinct -- one that Jimmy was given fully less credit for -- spread its arms within him, filling Jimmy with empathy. “I’m sorry, mate. I didn’t mean to be so awful,” he said softly, daring to pull out the chair next to Thomas’s so that they might sit side-by-side, much in the way they used to when they worked together and things were good. He reached for Thomas’s knee under the table and gave it a helpful pat.

Instantly, Thomas raised his head from his hands, staring into Jimmy’s face and suddenly far closer than Jimmy had been expecting. Jimmy swallowed, the drop sinking down his throat with a loud, sucking inhalation.

“But you’re right, a change’ll probably do you good,” Jimmy was quick to say, though he was also too nervous to move. He worried his bottom lip with a sharp canine until slyness molded the shape of his expression and he added, “Y’know, like a slow boat to _China_ . What could possibly be more excitin’ than a kidnap with your _bezzie mate_!” He made a point to repeat the term with endearing emphasis.

His concern that he might have gone too far was soon ameliorated by the sight of the little curve in Thomas’s lips. “Well…”

“Please, Thomas,” Jimmy entreated him one more time. He shook Thomas’s knee almost childishly and shifted his expression into what he hoped was a persuasive one. “Please, please. Let’s just this once do somethin’ where we workin’ lads can win the day. Then we can go back to bein’ good boys who slave for pennies and bread crusts. But just _this once_ ….”

“Well…” Thomas said again, as his smile grew. “I s’pose it’d be ungracious of me to let my best friend carry out a kidnapping on his own.”

“Just think of the _statues_ ,” Jimmy reminded him. “We’ll be glorious.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is shamelessly a John Lennon song. Link can't remember if she noted the story's title is an American songbook title, but it is. So there! 
> 
> Hope you guys are ready for this now that we've revealed what sort of nonsense may or may not be in store haha.


	3. Something Clever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas visits Jimmy's new home in London -- and his very special guest.

 

There was something almost festive about a long train ride with Jimmy. Thomas read someone's else’s newspaper, which he had found discarded on the seat next to them. Meanwhile, Jimmy stared out of the window, tapped his hands on his knees and then started to read Thomas's paper over his shoulder, making remarks on the articles. Periodically, one of them would remember Lady Anstruther locked away in Jimmy's basement, and they had to look away from each other to be able to control their laughter.

By the time they reached London, Thomas began to feel a little more focused, but that did nothing to dampen his pleasure in Jimmy's company. Jimmy took the lead the moment they alighted in London, cheerfully playing the unnecessary tour guide as he wound his way out of King’s Cross station and through the bustling city. There was a bounce to his step that he didn’t seem to want dampened by a ride in a city bus or a cab. The walk through Jimmy’s new habitat was a welcome change from the lull of Yorkshire, and though Thomas had been to London before, it had always been with the family, which left little time for exploration -- especially if one wanted to see the sights in daytime. The landmarks Jimmy pointed out were mostly known to him, but Thomas had no desire to stop him chatting about them. Jimmy would occasionally throw in an anecdote about a time he himself had been there, and these were Thomas’s favourites.

The streets they walked through were reasonably up-market; clearly Jimmy had done well for himself. He couldn’t help looking between Jimmy and the buildings he walked beside -- the clothes fit, but Thomas wondered what had happened for Jimmy to be able to afford to live in such an area. What had happened while Thomas was slaving away for little reward?

Eventually, after a fairly sizeable meander through town, Jimmy arrived at his door in the West End. The storefront was dark, but it boasted merry lettering upon the glass, proclaiming for all, ‘ _Aliquid Ingeniose’_. Jimmy fiddled with the lock with clumsy success as he distractedly explained to Thomas that he lived in a flat above the shop and had a fairly lucrative business in instrument repair and music lessons. “Rich people are amazingly stupid about this sort of thing,” he said as he twisted the key round and pushed the door in with the tinkle of a bell. “But whatever it takes to stay posh, I s’pose.”

“Sounds excellent. I’m pleased for you,” Thomas said honestly, trying not to feel jealous of Jimmy’s accomplishments after being sacked. He was increasingly curious to see Jimmy’s living quarters, which was something that had barely occurred to him until that moment. He had been picturing the basement and nothing else, perhaps with a vague impression of a shop above it; but the prospect of _visiting Jimmy’s house_ \-- that, he had not prepared for.

“It ain’t all roses,” said Jimmy as he held the door open for Thomas. “When I started out, I were holed in the back of some dump down in Brixton Market, tunin’ fiddles. Not much money down _there_.” He crinkled his nose, like a particularly unpleasant stench had just assaulted him, and Thomas’s stomach contracted in fondness.

“Anyway, I found me footing with a little derrin’-do,” said Jimmy, smoothly gliding over what appeared to be a topic he wanted to avoid. He let the door fall closed behind Thomas and blithely pressed onwards into the shop. There was a pretty selection of pianos lining the narrow floor, and even a full-sized harp peeking out from beneath a drop cloth in one corner. A grandfather clock stood near the back counter, where Jimmy had gone to hang up his battered fedora and overcoat. Thomas hovered in the middle of the shop, his half-healed wounds prickling in discomfort, until Jimmy gestured for Thomas to come and do the same.

“Hope you didn’t damage anything when you were frogmarching the Dowager in here,” Thomas commented as he dropped his own hat and coat onto a peg.

“I told her to mind her beads and rayon, right?” Jimmy said rather matter-of-factly as he surveyed the coat pegs with a dent in his brow. The black of Thomas’s Ulster coat made the brown of Jimmy’s more vibrant where they overlapped.

“As simple as that, eh?” Thomas smiled.

“Well, that and the shotgun I brought with me for the ride,” Jimmy said glibly. He had a pretty sordid curl to his lip. Then he clapped his hands together, rubbing them a bit madly as he wondered, “So what first? Tea? Or d’ya want to _see_ her?” His low, musical laugh was inappropriate and wonderful all at once.

“S’pose we should see the guest of honour,” Thomas said, a teasing lilt to his voice. There was just something supremely amusing about having the woman who had got Jimmy sacked now being in his basement. Maybe that made him a bad person. Ah well. He was going to hell anyway. “Lead the way.”

Jimmy at once started to walk even further down the length of the shop, though he only got a few steps along the way before he turned back to Thomas and asked, “You’re _sure_ you don’t want tea first?” His hand was resting on a deadbolt on the wall, the door it barricaded almost seamless with the wall.

“Very sure. C’mon.” He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“Right, well, remind me of the biscuits I’ve been savin’,” Jimmy said as he pulled the deadbolt back. He had a series of other locking mechanisms in place, which took a bit of routine to negotiate. The final failsafe was a small, but heavy, bureau, which he had to throw most of his weight against to push out of the way. Its clawed feet made a scraping noise against the hardwood floor.

“Afraid of burglars?” Thomas asked, amused at the myriad of precautions. It made him wonder whether all of them had been in place before Lady A had arrived.

“It ain’t what can get _in_ ,” Jimmy said cryptically. He pulled the door open and vanished into the dark opening. The creak of his shoes on wooden stairs echoed from within, and then a soft click. Looking through the door, Thomas saw that Jimmy now stood in a cone of amber light beneath a lightbulb screwed over a turn in the stairs. A pull-chain swung next to his face as he waited for Thomas to follow.

Gingerly, Thomas did so, the sight of Jimmy looking so grim below him bringing the reality of the situation home to him. The air was cooler down here, dead and still. No sunlight breached the doorway; no warmth.

As Thomas reached the turn, Jimmy swivelled around to continue descending, with Thomas at his heels. “How long have you had her down here?” it finally occurred to him to ask.

“I forget,” said Jimmy in a way that sounded a lot like a lie.

Thomas tried to meet his gaze, but Jimmy fixed his eyes on the stairs below him. He looked such a lonely figure that Thomas’s heart broke for him. “You could have come to me sooner,” he said quietly. He hated that Jimmy didn’t seem to know that he never had to be alone.

Jimmy said nothing and continued to the bottom of the stairs. It was a little bit brighter down there with a shaft of grim sunlight filtering between the cracks of a boarded-up coal chute. There were more pianos stored there, a number of old, rolled up carpets and other forgotten titbits. The faint twinkle of piano keys wafted through the air, leading the pair of men to Lady Anstruther, who was seated at a small harpsichord, idly moving through scales. She seemed absent.

“Well, Jimmy. Looks like you can employ her to demonstrate your pianos for you,” Thomas observed, putting his hands in the pockets of his suit jacket.

“Well, I’d thought about it,” said Jimmy, his tone sinking into unkindness, “but I also want them to sound good, don’t I?”

As Lady Anstruther turned, the notes stopped falling. She spared barely a disapproving glance at Thomas before frowning at Jimmy. “Getting help from your big brother?” she said snidely. “Got yourself into such a mess you need good old big bro to get you out of it?”

“No one asked for your _cheek_ ,” Jimmy snapped, and then turned his attention back to Thomas. “Well, there she is.” He seemed unimpressed with the presentation, as if he might have been trotting out something as mundane as freshly polished silver for Mr. Carson’s scrutiny.

“There she is,” Thomas agreed, at a bit of a loss as to what to say now that they were here. Then he remembered why Jimmy had done all of this, and his hands curled into fists in his pockets.

Lady Anstruther was watching them with a rather sardonic eye, considering she’d been secreted away in the basement of a piano shop for an undisclosed period of time. Her hair could have used a washing, but it was clear she was still taking pains to arrange it as best she could. For a kidnapped dowager, she wasn’t doing too poorly. She seemed to be under the impression that she still had some sort of power over the situation, or perhaps a sway over Jimmy. Thomas longed to swing for her. The only thing that held him back was the thought that she would probably only find it amusing; might even think it confirmed her perception of Jimmy as having called in the cavalry.

“Three’s company, Jimmy,” she trilled, arching an eyebrow. “And I so missed you...”

“Don’t _even_ ,” Jimmy fumed, red in the face. He looked like he might pop. “You’re goin’ to hear me out, so listen up, and listen _good_.”

Lady Anstruther was unaffected by the display, though she shifted her expression in a way that certainly marked some sort of interest.

“You’re goin’ away,” Jimmy informed her bluntly. “Far, far away from me, where you can’t make a mess of me life anymore. So if you ever want out of this basement again, you’re goin’ to do just as I say, right? Or I swear to Christ, I’ve got two shotgun shells with your bloody name on ‘em.”

Resisting the temptation to put a calming hand on Jimmy’s arm, Thomas attempted to soothe with his words instead. “Calm down,” he said, searching out Jimmy’s gaze. Jimmy looked up at him as Thomas continued, “Bribery’s easier than threats. Then you haven’t got to hold a gun the whole time.” He gave Jimmy a reassuring smile. “These things can be managed, but not by losing your temper.”

Whether it was the particular advice or just Thomas’s voice, Jimmy settled a bit, though his face was still twisted with aggravation. Whatever was flickering through his head was readable in his expression, but was flashing by too quickly to be caught. At length, Jimmy’s eyes narrowed as something caught his attention. Jabbing a spindly finger at Lady A, Jimmy demanded of her, “That. What’s _that_? Give it me.” He made a clutching motion with his outstretched hand until Anstruther figured out his meaning.

She touched the chain of the necklace she still wore, which had been responsible for the glimmer Jimmy was focused on. “Is this what you’re after, little Jimmy?” she asked in a way that was wholly belittling.

“What did I tell you about cheek?” Jimmy retorted snidely. Impatient, he lunged forward and made a snatch for the jewellery, a delicate snap resounding like a slap across the face as he yanked the necklace from around her neck. He brought it close to his eyes to examine it. It appeared to be of Eastern design, with a motif of jade flowers and dripping with three pearl teardrops.

“Give that back, sweetheart,” Anstruther said, in a bored voice, as if she were speaking to a child.

Thomas thought Jimmy might go for her then. Jimmy snarled, “ _Don’t_ you --” and made towards her, but Thomas managed to wrap his fingers around Jimmy’s upper arm. Jimmy froze.

“Looks like we have something you want back,” Thomas said to Anstruther, Jimmy’s heavy breathing audible beneath his words.

Shrugging, Lady Anstruther swiveled back around to face the piano, poking keys at random with an air of indifference. But after she resounded the same note no less than ten times in a row, Thomas arched a skeptical eyebrow, suspicious that perhaps the necklace meant a great deal more to her than she was letting on. Which was quite fortunate: he probably couldn’t have planned it better himself.

“Jimmy,” Thomas said, mirroring the dowager’s casual mask. “How much would you say a piece like that is worth?”

Twin bands of light glimmered devilishly in the whites of Jimmy’s eyes as he peered closely at the necklace. The precious stones that decorated it were aged, perhaps steeped in some sort of fantastic history. “Y’know, I’d been thinkin’ of movin’ into a nicer part of town,” Jimmy said evenly. “I wonder what sort of down payment I could fetch with this?”

Anstruther scoffed, still tinkling out a series of unrelated notes. “It’s not worth _that_ much. It’s a trinket, nothing more.”

Thomas let a smile spread his lips. He was conscious of Jimmy now watching him. “I don’t believe you. I think this is worth a lot -- at least, it’s worth a lot to _you_. Which amounts to about the same thing, I reckon.”

“Y’think the King would mind if I moved in next door?” Jimmy asked Thomas, flicking the central jade flower with his index finger. The necklace swung like a pendulum at the touch. “Though I s’pose with this, the world’s me oyster, huh?” He spoke the last words directly at Lady Anstruther, a challenge of some kind. At last, she seemed to be cracking a bit.

“I’m telling you, you won’t get that far,” she insisted, twisting on the stool to face them again.

“No,” said Jimmy, a spike of confidence evident in the squaring of his shoulders and the turn in his diction. “I’ll tell you _exactly_ how far we’ll get. You’re goin’ to come quietly with us -- as far as we feel like, mind -- and when we get to… _wherever_ , you can have your shiny toy back. I don’t care what you do after that, or if you even decide to come back to England. It’ll give you time to think about what you done to me, you stupid witch.”

“Oh, you always were so _adorable_ when you were cross, Jimmy,” said Lady Anstruther with an even more thickly condescending lilt. “Now, tell me, when we get to _wherever_ , who’s to say I shan’t report you then?”

“ _Because_ by then, I’ll have worked out a way to completely ruin you,” Jimmy hissed acerbically. “And you won’t want to show your face in the light of day for the shame of it.”

Anstruther gaped at Jimmy, her mouth uncertain if it wished to remain closed or not. She seemed confused by Jimmy’s intensity on the subject, especially when he filled her silence with an addendum: “Don’t think I haven’t still got your name on those shotgun shells, _m’lady_.”

Before Lady Anstruther had a chance to gather her wits, Jimmy turned to Thomas with a wide smile, the stiffness in his shoulders relaxing a bit. “Now, I think it’s time for a proper brew up,” he said reaching to clap Thomas on the back. He steered Thomas around, practically pushing him back towards the stairs as he squirreled the necklace into his jacket pocket. “Those biscuits I told you about -- they’re my favourites.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys are still enjoying this story. It's not even got halfway into its ridiculousness hahaha. Link has begun school, but hopefully the writing marathons will continue at their current clip. Thanks for reading~!
> 
> There is a clue as to what the Latin name of Jimmy's shop means somewhere in here, so I won't spoil the fun. Just know he's trolling the whole street ;D


	4. Lost At Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy impulsively moves forward with his plan and books passage to lands far and exotic. 
> 
> (Or: in which the plot gets going.)

 

Jimmy was glad that Thomas was polite enough not to say anything about how he allocated his newfound fortune. As with most of Jimmy’s ventures, he made things up as he went along. Despite the fact that he and Thomas had sat over tea and his favourite almond biscuits to discuss details of what they ought to do next, they hadn’t got much further than general terms before their conversation had derailed into the sort of chat they had been missing since their separation. Jimmy didn’t entertain guests much, and his flat was the lair of a frenzied madman, but he couldn’t help but think that Thomas belonged on his settee, drinking from his mismatched tea service. He felt weirdly nostalgic about it -- an experience that was different, yet still the same as it ever was. He wondered what sorts of new things loomed for them on the horizon as he considered the trio of tickets he’d booked to exotic Shanghai -- a complete whim that he’d executed almost as quickly as he’d dreamed it. They were set to leave before the week was out, and, so far, he’d only put two pairs of trousers and some hose garters into his case.

Thomas, by contrast, was surprisingly prepared, considering he had had no idea of the situation until Jimmy had turned up and interrupted his chess game. It seemed that he had been shopping, because he had brought only an overnight case with him when Jimmy had dragged him across the country, and now he definitely had more. Jimmy had not cared enough to look properly, but he had seen Thomas in the kitchen with three cases, a pile of clothes and assorted other bits, trying to pack them all in.

“How much stuff are you takin’?” Jimmy asked once, on his way to make them something for lunch.

Thomas tapped one of the cases with one long finger. “This much,” he said, before pointing to another of them. “This is Anstruther’s.” He slid the third one across the counter to Jimmy. “That’s yours.”

“But I’ve got me owns!” Jimmy whined, gesturing vaguely to the mostly empty valise that lay at the foot of his bed, which was just visible through an open door down the hall. But he quietly supposed that Thomas would have already considered that aspect as well. “I just hope you didn’t burn a hole in your pocket -- especially on _her_.”

Thomas smirked. “I barely spent a crown on _her_.”

“You better not have spent much more on me neither!” Jimmy yelped with sudden anxiety -- though he couldn’t rightly describe what had gotten him in such a twist about the idea.

The smile faded; Thomas ducked his head for a moment. “Not much more. I just thought… we should be prepared. I didn’t want you to have anything to worry about.”

“I -- I know, it’s just….” Jimmy felt awkward, not wanting money to become an object between them, but also worried that Thomas was going to squander precious savings when he didn’t have to. “I can take care of it, eh?” Jimmy tried, feeling a sense of disgust with himself over such materialism, even if it was his own attempt at practicality. “Please? This is all me own crazy scheme to start with anyway.”

With a careless gesture, Thomas seemed to wave his concerns away. “You paid for the tickets,” he said. “If anything, I owe you. Don’t worry about it and make me some lunch.”

\--

The steamer that waited to take them away that Saturday was the _RMS Agatha_. It was surreal for Jimmy as they boarded. He’d only ever been on a ship once, and that was during the war, which barely counted in his mind. But here he was leading an underbutler and a dowager onto the second class decks -- a notion that seemed incredibly backwards to him. His parents probably would have no idea what to make of him if they could’ve seen.

Thomas was still taking everything in his stride, an ability which Jimmy both envied and appreciated; it left more time for enjoying themselves if he wasn’t constantly questioning things and just let them take things as they came. Lady Anstruther was a constant drain on Jimmy’s patience and a threat to his equilibrium; but she was compliant enough due to the rock-and-a-hard-place situation they had put her into.

After boarding the ship, they settled into their quarters for the journey. Anstruther had a small room to herself, while Thomas and Jimmy shared.

“I get the top bunk,” Jimmy said at once, shoving the case Thomas had packed for him onto the narrow mattress.

“As you like,” Thomas agreed indifferently, sliding his own luggage underneath the bed.

“Spoilsport,” said Jimmy, twirling the key to Lady Anstruther’s cabin between two fingers. He might have been impulsive, but he wasn’t stupid.

Thomas shot him a bemused smile. “I’m agreeing with you.”

“Oh,” said Jimmy. He let his gaze swing around their accommodations -- anywhere but Thomas’s face, so he wouldn’t have to know if Thomas could tell just how hot his cheeks were. The white-panelled space was quite cramped, and it would be close-quarters for the duration of their journey, but Jimmy was still impressed with what success had bought for them. Then he wondered after Lady A, secretly pleased that she was probably quite offended by the dip in luxury, considering her usual standards. His revenge was already off to a satisfying start.

He tossed his chin in the direction of the deck, saying to Thomas, “How about we take a leisurely stroll, see what’s what? Then, _maybe_ , we can look in on Lady A. Make sure she ain’t died.”

“Or we could just go for dinner,” Thomas suggested.

“I knew I wanted you along on this for a reason,” Jimmy grinned, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

\--

“I suppose we _should_ look in on her,” Thomas said, once they had been for a wander around the ship and were standing at the port side of the deck, looking out at the sea. It was fairly windy out in the open, and Thomas’s hair was starting to blow out of its pomade in places. Jimmy’s own was surely a wreck; he dared not even run a combing finger through it to find out.

“Yeah, I _suppose_ ,” Jimmy drawled, chewing idly on the last of the biscuits he’d filched from the dining room at dessert. The meal he’d shared with Thomas had been average, but it _tasted_ a lot better than it actually was, partially due to circumstance, partially due to company.

“Good evening, chaps,” a voice assaulted their quiet moment. “Fine evening, isn’t it?”

“Not bad,” Jimmy grunted, irritated to have been interrupted by this squat, elderly man.

The newcomer shook Thomas’s hand emphatically, clapping him on the side with the other hand. He repeated the gesture with Jimmy, giving neither of them much choice as to whether they would shake hands or not. “Felix Beresford, chaps, pleased to meet you. And you are?”

Jimmy and Thomas introduced themselves, rather grudgingly.

“And what brings you aboard?” Felix asked with a smile.

Jimmy hesitated for only a moment. “Adventure.”

The man waited expectantly, but neither Thomas nor Jimmy had anything much to add, despite the fact that he clearly wanted a chat.

“I’m off to see the family, myself,” Felix supplied.

“Don’t got a family,” Jimmy started to say, though he could already see the returning question formulating on Felix’s pudgy lips. He hastily added, “Drowned at sea, all of ‘em. Terrible.”

“Mine, too,” Thomas said, straight-faced, as quick as Jimmy could ever have hoped for.

“Same ship, an’ all,” Jimmy elaborated, suddenly stoked with mischief. He reached for Thomas, wrapping an arm around his neck and jerking him down to his own level. “Made us kindred in grief, it did. Now neither of us has got another soul in the world.” If Jimmy had been one to carry a handkerchief, he might have pulled it out for effect. As it was, he had only Thomas’s sleeve to pretend to wipe his nose on.

Thomas cast him a brief, affronted glare before returning his attention to Felix. “We still sail every year on the anniversary of their deaths, to remember them, and prove that we’re not going down that easy.”

“Ah, I see,” Felix blustered, looking at a loss as to how to respond to their tale of tragedy.

“We’re pleased to hear your own family are not so… dead,” Jimmy added.

“Yes, yes,” Felix replied. “They’re, ah, alive and well. Well, most of them. Not the ones who are, dead, obviously, ha.”

“Obviously,” Jimmy drawled, shaking his head slightly at Thomas.

“Well, you’ll excuse me, then,” said Felix, clearly baffled by their odd story and eager to make an escape now that control of the conversation had so quickly shifted tides. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around. It’s a long voyage!” Then he scuttled off, his coat flapping behind him on the sea breeze.

“Twit,” Jimmy muttered low enough for only Thomas to hear.

Thomas led the way back to Anstruther’s room, but Jimmy soon caught up and fell into step with him. When they arrived, Jimmy couldn’t help but press his ear against the door, half-hoping to hear zero signs of life. Unfortunately, there was enough scraping from within to kill the prayer. He huffed dramatically and fished out the key to her room, motioning for Thomas to stand at the ready in case their esteemed travelling companion tried to do a runner.

“Where’s she gonna go on a boat?” Thomas pointed out.

Jimmy fidgeted, unsure how to fully explain to Thomas that it wasn’t really about her _going_ anywhere. For too long, Jimmy had struggled with his own autonomy, and he blamed his unhealthy relationship with Lady Anstruther for a lot of it. He wasn’t about to let her have even an inch of that back -- mostly for fear that he wouldn’t be able to get his footing if she managed to knock him over again.

In the end, he elected to just say nothing, sucking his bottom lip in between his teeth to chew it pensively instead. The lock clacked loudly as it disengaged, and Jimmy pushed the cabin door open, where he found Lady Anstruther sitting in front of the tiny vanity. Her back was facing them as they entered, but her face was visible in the mirror as she preened in front of it. She wore a cotton nightgown that had clearly been one of Thomas’s purchases for her before they left.

“Just wanted to see if you were hungry,” Jimmy said nonchalantly as he dusted biscuit crumbs off his tie. “And if you were as _excited_ as we are about this little adventure.” He whacked Thomas with the back of his hand; “We’re just thrilled, aren’t we?”

“Over the moon,” Thomas agreed.

“That’s right. Over the _fuckin’_ moon,” Jimmy emphasized. He checked Thomas, who seemed vastly entertained by the proceedings, and then his own empty hands, which were now devoid of biscuits. “Give us a ciggy,” Jimmy demanded of Thomas, only half looking at him as he sent Lady A what he hoped was an unsettling glower. He received the cigarette from Thomas blindly, and felt the weight of the lighter also being pressed into his palm. Jimmy lit up, careless of whether or not the smell of tobacco clung to everything in the cabin for the rest of the journey. He hoped the stench made her cough.

“How nice for you,” Anstruther said neutrally, not bothering to looking away from the mirror as she brushed each strand of hair into its perfect position. Somehow, she was determined to wear that nightgown like it was the newest Parisian fashion, even if it killed her.

“Well, let’s get to it, then. I ain’t got all night,” Jimmy said with a bossy snap of his fingers. “You hungry or what?”

“A lady is never hungry, but is always ready to eat,” she said primly.

Thomas rolled his eyes at Jimmy. “Get movin’ then,” he told Anstruther.

Anstruther took her time to check her face in the mirror before standing, turning to them with a smile. “I’m all ready.”

“Ain’t you forgettin’ somethin’?” Jimmy asked her, giving her nightgown an uncomfortable look.

“Oh, Jimmy,” she said. “You of all people should know that I forget nothing. Off we go, then.”

Thomas and Jimmy exchanged a glance. Thomas shrugged.

“Whatever ya like,” Jimmy decided. “‘S’only yourself you’re embarrassin’.” He turned on his heel and marched out of the cabin, trusting Thomas to herd Anstruther on in front of him.

As they made their way back to the dining cabin, Jimmy shoved his hands into his pockets and wished for another cigarette. He was nervous not only because his confidence had been drained after that last exchange with Anstruther, but also because he felt like every person they walked by had turned to look at the woman in a nightdress that was in their company. He supposed this was one time where the dowager’s complete lack of shame might have been a benefit.

“We could have just taken her with us to dinner earlier,” Thomas pointed out, as though this had only just occurred to him.

“Ha, well --” As Jimmy half-turned to address Thomas, a young man dressed in all the trappings of a valet walked right into him, cutting off his words.

The other man’s face was twisted into an ugly expression. “Oh, I’m sorry, didn’t mean to walk into the high-and-mighty,” he sneered. “Too good to look where you’re going?”

The impact knocked Jimmy back a few paces, which offended him more than being called high-and-mighty. That, Jimmy thought as soon as he got his bearings back, was an unnatural thing to be accused of -- or, at least, something he was unused to. He recovered just before crashing into Lady Anstruther, who was hovering much closer to his back than he’d realised, and quickly found his face scrunched with displeasure as he tried to get a good look at the man he was about to row with. He was too annoyed to formulate words, and instead just dug his nails into his palms as he again imagined having another cigarette.

“Too good for you to look at, anyway,” Thomas put in from behind.

“Some of us work for a living,” the valet retorted. “Ain’t no shame in that.”

“Guess some of us work harder’n others,” Jimmy snapped, already full of dislike for the other man, despite not even knowing what he was called. “Shove off!”

“Gladly,” the valet replied. “I’ve got work to do.”

“You can’t teach class,” Lady Anstruther commented as the valet sidestepped the trio and stomped off further down the deck. Jimmy got the distinct impression the comment wasn’t aimed at the valet, though.

The dining cabin was significantly less crowded at this much later hour, and was already being set for breakfast by a pair of waiters, leaving only a few tables dressed for an evening meal. The table Jimmy selected for them had the misfortune of standing in the exact center of the room, but was also the only unoccupied table available. He sat between Thomas and Lady A, and scanned the menu for a late-night snack. He told Thomas to have whatever he liked, though Thomas insisted he wasn’t hungry; he told Lady Anstruther to keep it cheap.

“And if anybody asks, your name is _Betty_ \-- or somethin’,” Jimmy hissed at Lady A across the empty chair he had purposefully kept between them. From his seat across the table, Thomas snorted with uncontrolled amusement.

Anstruther had barely begun to tuck into her petit pois when a young woman approached their table. She had plump, rosy cheeks and wore a trouser suit which hung strangely on her slim frame. She rested her hands on the back of one of the empty chairs that remained at their table, offering a coy smile at Jimmy as she asked him, “Is anyone sitting here?”

“What’s it look like?” he asked around a mouthful of streusel, which he had insisted he and Thomas share. He waved vaguely with his fork and returned his attention to more important matters on his plate. He was already championing his portion of the dessert.

She took Jimmy’s response as permission and pulled out the chair, which stood between his and Lady Anstruther’s. Jimmy, preoccupied with sparring against Thomas’s fork for the remaining bits of cake, was startled by the rather presumptuous caress that passed over his shoulder as she sidled into her seat. He shot her an odd look, but she was already focused on the menu card that was laid over her place setting. He figured it was just a product of the tight space, and put it out of mind.

“Joining us, are you?” Thomas said dryly, surrendering the last three crumbs to Jimmy.

The woman looked up and beamed. “How kind of you to invite me. Tables are a little hard to come by in here at the moment. I’m Adrianna Cortina,” she added, addressing Jimmy. She held out a hand for him to shake and leaned in conspiratorially. “But you can call me Addie.”

“Sure,” said Jimmy as he scraped up the last few morsels of streusel with his thumb. He licked it without regard for decorum. Adrianna already bored him, which he tried to express to Thomas with a significant lift in his eyebrows. Thomas nodded at him with a sort of glazed look. Jimmy figured he was bored by her too.

“Delighted to meet you, Miss Cortina,” Lady Anstruther piped up, who seemed revived by the fact that there was another person of decent breeding to interact with. Addie might not have been related to anyone in the blue books, but she was a step up from the working class standards of Thomas and Jimmy. With automatic mannerisms, Lady Anstruther opened her mouth to return the introduction, though not without catching the almost ridiculously stern glower on Jimmy’s face just behind Addie’s head. She smiled with saccharine politeness: “And I’m _Betty_ ,” she emphasised, mostly for Jimmy’s benefit.

“Lovely,” said Addie as the waiter came around for her selection. She put in an order for roasted chicken and then returned to Lady Anstruther with equal sweetness. “It must be nice for a -- mmm -- _fashionable_ person such as yourself to be on such a fabulous voyage with your…”  She took a moment to consider Thomas and Jimmy, and then finished with a tiny tilt of her head, “ _Family_.” It was hard to tell if she was being genuine or not, especially with the way she was eyeing Lady Anstruther’s nightgown regalia.

“Simply marvellous,” Anstruther replied, tweaking the collar fussily.

“Walk in the bloody park,” Jimmy agreed sarcastically. When he looked at Thomas to roll his eyes, Thomas’s gaze was fixed on their empty dessert plate. Jimmy kicked him under the table, making Thomas jump. “And we ain’t family, so don’t go thinkin’ it.”

“Our families drowned after falling off a boat,” Thomas put in flippantly.

Addie gave a little gasp. “How simply awful for you!” she said, laying a hand on Jimmy’s thigh.

She might have pressed the barrel of a revolver against his leg with the way Jimmy froze, his breath like ice in his throat. His eyes flicked around the table, resting on Thomas with what he hoped was a silent cry for help. But Thomas was busy lighting himself a cigarette and didn’t notice, and Jimmy didn’t dare draw any more attention to it than that. With measured syllables, he said, “It was _terrible_.”

“Oh, I’d imagine,” Addie sympathised, drawing her hand off Jimmy’s leg with a sweep of her fingers that lingered against his trousers much longer than necessary, travelling up the length of the side seam before floating away. But it was a short-lived respite, for her hand immediately relocated itself to Jimmy’s bicep, squeezing into it enough that the fabric of his jacket bulged around her grip as she said, “You must have been so _brave._ ”

On Addie’s other side, Lady Anstruther was crushing what remained of her peas with a heavy fork, which fell from her hand with a sudden clatter against the china. “But not without the help of people who _love_ him,” she interjected, all signs of her earlier friendliness gone.

“Some love,” Jimmy muttered, looking again to Thomas for comfort. Thomas was checking his pocketwatch for the time; he frowned at the face of it and tapped the glass.

The awkward pause was disrupted by the loud whine of chair legs against the floor, calling the attention of the four diners. A gangly, bird-like man with thinning hair and thick glasses was moving the chair out of his way with no shortage of fanfare. He pinched the rim of one lens and bent down towards Thomas’s pocketwatch with a little bit too much interest, practically addressing the timepiece itself as he said, “What a marvellous thing you have there!”

Affronted, Thomas snapped the watch’s lid closed and pulled it away as if it were his most precious treasure. “Yes, I do,” he agreed shortly, tucking it back into his pocket.

“Where did you get it? Are you a collector?” the intruder needed to know. He was already falling back into the chair as he added a brief courtesy: “Mind if I join you?”

“Oh, of course!” Thomas said, a little too loudly. “Everyone’s interruptin’ us, are they? Let’s invite the whole ship, shall we?”

“Don’t mind if I do, then!” said the newcomer, though the quartet of glares he was met with made it clear that he was the only one who didn’t. “The name’s Cecil, by the way. Cecil Morgan. Might I have a closer look at that watch?”

Thomas raised one hand at Jimmy in an exasperated gesture, making Cecil look over at last. Until then, he had acted as though Thomas was the only person at the table, but when he caught sight of Addie, the focus of his attention changed.

“And who’s this lovely young lady?” Cecil asked, reaching under the table to try and engage her. He found, instead, only Jimmy’s knee, which sent rigid sparks up Jimmy’s spine.

Unaware of what was happening beneath the tablecloth, Addie ignored Cecil and smiled at Jimmy, who was growing increasingly more uncomfortable. He hated all the attention, especially considering Lady Anstruther’s dangerous unpredictability. Part of him wondered if it might be a better plan to just shove her overboard in the middle of the night and have done with it.

“ _This_ lovely young lady isn’t so lovely,” huffed Addie contrarily. “She belongs to no man -- except the ones she wants to!” She squeezed Jimmy’s bicep pointedly at her emphasis and Jimmy fought to swallow his irritation by chewing on the inside of his cheek, while jostling his knee in hopes of shaking Cecil’s distressingly forward touch.

“Well said,” Lady Anstruther toasted Addie with a lift of her water glass -- a gesture of bad luck that was most likely intentional. The dowager did not seem particularly pleased by what she might have normally construed as entertainment.

All the while, Jimmy tried to behave as normally as possible so as not to upset Thomas or draw any more unwanted focus to their table. He wanted to claw his skin off and destroy all evidence of every unwelcome touch he had been subjected to that evening. It seemed like Thomas was the only person there who cared enough to respect his space, which, paradoxically, only made Jimmy want to cling to him more.

Put off, Cecil leaned back in his chair, though he still managed to remain stiff and awkward as he did so. He returned to Thomas, defeatedly repeating his earlier request: “So, about that watch, Mr…?”

“Barrow,” Thomas supplied in a resigned tone. “And I think it’s time we were going.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Jimmy agreed, standing immediately. He was glad for the excuse to shake off Addie’s clutching hands, which he did with a very herculean shrug. “C’mon, _Betty_. We’re goin’.”

Scooting her chair back with a surprising amount of gusto, Anstruther was on her feet almost instantly. The complacency was short-lived, however, as she was quick to hang herself off Jimmy’s arm, begging of him in a fashion that was surely meant to leave Addie seething: “How about a nice stroll around the decks before we turn in, Jimmy? I could use a stretch.”

“Just peachy,” Jimmy eked out thinly. He looked round to check that Thomas was following, which he was -- much to Jimmy’s unending relief -- and made his exit as hastily as he could.

It had become significantly more chilly since they’d entered the dining cabin. Jimmy took mercy on Lady Anstruther and sacrificed his jacket to her, leaving him in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves. It was a bit brisk without it, but the action of removing the garment had at least been enough to get the dowager off his arm, and that made the cold worth it. They ambled aimlessly down the starboard side of the ship, heading astern. Jimmy’s attention wandered out to sea, which was as black glass, reflecting the spread of stars above. He had never seen so many stars all at once in his whole life, not even in the Yorkshire countryside, and moving to London had wholly obliterated the concept of heaven from Jimmy’s understanding. Then, cigarette smoke floated into his line of sight. He smiled.

“Let’s have another one,” Jimmy asked of Thomas. “I’ve been gaggin’ for a smoke for the last hour.”

Thomas put another cigarette between his lips, lit it, and handed it over to Jimmy. When he had first met Thomas, Jimmy might have been disgusted by the thought of such a gesture; but now he found it touching. Thomas was sparing him the trouble of even lighting his own cigarettes, much less buying them.

“Do you have to?” Lady A asked wearily. “Smoking is so _very_ middle class.”

Jimmy graced her only with a sharkish grin and a thick cloud of smoke, which he exhaled pointedly in her face.

Anstruther lifted her chin, apparently choosing to rise above it.

They carried on in silence with only the thrum of the steamer as it cut through the dark ocean to fill their ears. At length, Jimmy became unsettled by the quiet, never comfortable to be left with his own thoughts for very long, and instead voiced the next arbitrary thing that flitted through his head. “D’ya think we’ll make it all the way there?” he asked Thomas, pretending that he wasn’t at all bothered by Lady Anstruther’s rare show of valour.

“Depends where you want to go,” Thomas answered inscrutably.

Jimmy opened his mouth to answer, on the tip of actually admitting something profound, when they were met with more unexpected company. Approaching them from the opposite direction was none other than confounded Felix Beresford, the insufferable individual that had been goading them after their first meal. He greeted them with a familiarity that Jimmy did not appreciate.

“Hello again, chaps!” Felix said loudly. “And you have another friend now, delightful, delightful. My name is Felix Beresford, dear lady, who might you be?” He repeated his earlier gesture of enthusiastically pumping Lady Anstruther’s hand.

Anstruther extracted herself with a look of distaste on her face, making Jimmy think snidely that at last she knew how _he_ felt for a change. “I might be any number of things,” she said. “What I am, in fact, is busy. Do excuse us,” she concluded with obvious insincerity. The wind billowing down the deck ruffled the skirts of her nightgown with mocking gaiety.

“Her name is Betty,” Jimmy informed Felix glibly, a new wind in his sails at Lady Anstruther’s clear discomfort. He puffed on his cigarette casually.

“Delightful,” Felix repeated. “I must say, you chaps are admirably active. An inspiration to us all, I’m sure.”

Jimmy was in no mood to throw in a clever witticism, as was his usual. Thomas seemed wary of the odd change in attitude, and picked up the slack for him. “We were just tryin’ to decide how far we were goin’ to get on this thing,” he informed Felix, hoping to keep things light.

“Oh, I should think another hundred or so miles by the morning,” Felix replied.

“That all?” Thomas said. “I’m sure the ship to France was much faster.”

Jimmy guessed that he was referring to the ones that had transported soldiers to the front line, but had no desire to have his suspicions confirmed. “Want to bet?” Jimmy suggested, as a distraction.

“Ah, I don’t know about that…” Felix said uncertainly. He gave a look to Lady Anstruther, whose attire and attitude made her seem quite removed from the scene entirely; she was not to be his ally in the matter.

“Well, what do you think?” Jimmy interceded. He was willing to wager Thomas was a lot smarter than Felix in all matters. “Put your money where your mouth is if you know so much, yeah?”

After a calculating pause, Thomas said, “I’d wager a crown we’ll make it beyond France by dawn.”

“No, no,” Felix insisted, apparently unable to resist correcting him. “We’re not going fast enough for that. I’d say we only get halfway along the Channel by morning.”

“There we are, then,” Jimmy said. “We have our terms. We can check with the crew tomorrow just who’s right.”

When they parted ways with Felix, Jimmy said to Thomas, “That guy is such a _twit_.”

They walked the length of the ship and back again, still in relative silence. The bravery that had filled Jimmy before Felix had revisited them had long since been deflated, and he no longer had the mindset to say any of the things he thought he might tell Thomas before. Once he finished his cigarette, he lobbed it overboard -- a pinprick of orange fire in the ebony night before it was snuffed out -- and then kept his eyes fixed on the ground as he moodily led the way back to their quarters. He was very cold.

Arriving at Lady Anstruther’s cabin, Jimmy dug through his trouser pocket for the key to her room, which he grasped almost immediately. He opened the door for her and bade her to enter with a rather derisive, “Sleep well, _m’lady_.” He spat the honorific almost as if it were an insult.

“You’re welcome to join me, Jimmy,” she said, refusing to give in as she peeled Jimmy’s jacket off in a rather suggestive manner. She had donned a certain aura that mixed playfulness and sensuality, and also made Jimmy’s skin crawl. He shuddered and snatched his coat back by the collar as she added, “You could do with a bit of warmth, it seems.”

Jimmy slammed the door, too angry to even speak. He had to lean heavily against it as he tried to lock it up again, his hands shaking enough so that he nearly fumbled the key twice before he managed to get it. Only after Thomas took half a step towards him, probably intending to lend a hand, did he succeed in turning the key. He heard the tumble of the mechanism as it fell into place.

“Time for -- um, sleep,” Thomas said, stumbling somewhere in the middle of his sentence. Jimmy tried not to consider what he might have been planning to say for fear he might start thinking about it too.

They moved on to their own door. Jimmy dug in his pockets for their own key, but the only hint of metal to pass his fingers was the key for Lady A’s room.

“Problem?” Thomas asked after a few seconds of his increasingly irritated searching. Jimmy turned out his pockets in frustration: all that fell out was an old gum wrapper, some loose fluff and Lady Anstruther’s key, which hit the deck with a decisive _tink_.

“Have you got your key on you?” Jimmy checked his waistcoat pockets, and then rifled through his jacket, despite knowing he had not put the key into them.

Thomas stepped forwards to open the door, pulling his own key out of his inside pocket. He had attached it to his watch chain, of course he had. Of _course_ he had.

However, before moving to let Thomas take over, Jimmy tried the handle on an odd whim. The door was unlocked. Jimmy frowned.

“You definitely locked that on the way out,” Thomas said, anticipating Jimmy’s unspoken question.

Warily, Jimmy pushed open the door and stepped inside with Thomas at his back. They looked around carefully. The room was unoccupied, and seemed almost as they had left it; but with his guard up, Jimmy spotted a number of things that seemed just a little bit _off_ . His valise, which he had left with the clasps latched, now sat with both unhinged; Thomas had very _pointedly_ left their spare shoes in an orderly fashion against their bunk, but the even row was disrupted by two overturned brogues; the middle drawer of the berth’s only bureau was hanging open -- and that alarmed Jimmy the most. He forgot all else and hurried towards it, his fingers digging through the small collection of valuables he’d thought to bury beneath his hose and undergarments upon arrival. With sobering clarity, he started to chant a desperate plea of, “No, no, _no, NO_!” to himself as it soon became apparent that their most valuable possession was missing.

Lady Anstruther’s jade necklace had been stolen.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're still enjoying this! Link loves locked room scenarios and she hopes the rest of you do as well! Thanks for reading! Let us know if what you think if you feel so inclined!


	5. Cat Among Pigeons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and Jimmy start investigating their list of suspects.

 

Between them, Thomas and Jimmy searched the whole room, only to confirm what they already knew: the necklace was nowhere to be found. Thomas was trying to formulate a plan, but nothing had yet occurred to him. The room was in disarray from their searching, a mess of scattered clothes and pillows. Eventually, Thomas sat down on the bed.

“Right. We know someone’s broken in. We know the necklace isn’t here. So instead of looking for the necklace, we need to look for the person who’s stolen it -- so when did you last have the key?”

“If I knew that, I’d know where it was,” Jimmy grumbled.

“Where do you last  _ remember _ having the key, then?” Thomas amended.

“When I locked our door. Then I put it in my pocket. My trouser pocket.”

Lighting up a cigarette to help him think, Thomas asked, “Has anyone had opportunity to take it? D’you remember anyone touching your leg or something?”

“How about the whole bloody boat?” Jimmy muttered.

“Eh?”

Jimmy’s shoulders became tense, his continued frenzied searching at a momentary pause. “I’m sick of it, me,” he said tersely as he started going through his case again, flinging every item that didn’t satisfy his search carelessly aside without regard for where it fell. “Me mum always used to say how  _ lucky  _ I were to be her beautiful, handsome little boy. Fat lot of good it’s done me. Everyone wants to get close, but close in all the worst ways. I just… I just….” Words suddenly seemed like an abstract construct, no longer sufficient in describing the things he meant to. He let out a peculiar groan, which gurgled in the back of his throat, before turning around to face Thomas, his face squished with distress. “I just hate bein’ touched so much, yeah?” His movements were jerky, and he refused to meet Thomas’s eyes, like there was another subclause to his statement underwritten in print too fine for Thomas to read.

Thomas’s first instinct was the desire to pull Jimmy into a comforting hug; but he had been careful not to cross any lines with Jimmy ever since that ill-fated kiss. He had realised, from Jimmy’s reaction, from the retrospective examination of Jimmy’s responses to his other tentative advances, that Jimmy did not like to be touched. The news of what Anstruther had done to him had shed some light on possible reasons for it -- now Jimmy’s words made the picture even clearer. Having once been one of the people to get too close to Jimmy, Thomas was determined not to make him any more uncomfortable. His fingers twitched in his lap. “So, you might have a few suspects to look at?” he asked gently.

“Christ, we’ve spoken to half the world tonight,” Jimmy lamented, still a little stressed out by the whole ordeal. “But if I were goin’ to point a finger -- and I  _ am _ \-- I’d say that beady little valet we crashed into earlier. He didn’t sit well with me at all.” He took a moment to chew contemplatively on his thumb, perhaps trying to assess the other people they’d interacted with that night, though it seemed he wasn’t quite as keen to accuse any of them in quite so instinctual a way.

“Him? Nah,” Thomas denied. “Just because you don’t like him doesn’t make him a thief. He’s a worker, from the look of him, not a criminal.”

“Everyone’s a bloody criminal as far as I’m concerned,” Jimmy said flippantly, an attempt at normality. “Even  _ you _ , my dear Thomas. I mean, why else do you think I  _ li-- _ wanted you along on this one?”

Thomas was still reeling from being called ‘my dear Thomas’, and could only manage to say, “My rapier wit?”

“Yes, ah, among other things,” Jimmy hustled out quickly, already back to peeking through ridiculous nooks and crannies that no sane person would ever  _ accidentally  _ misplace something. He began stripping both the bunk beds, which had been stretched with sheets so tight, a coin would have bounced upon them.

Thomas stood up and moved out of his way, just watching him for a moment before asking, “Who else? We need to know who might have taken it.”

“That sassy little tart who couldn’t keep her bloody hands to herself might be a start,” Jimmy threw out as another suspect.

Thomas could not remember anyone who might fit that description apart from Addie, and she had only touched his arm. “Who?”

Jimmy whirled around with the force it took to yank the bottom sheet free of its moorings, the white bolt of fabric sailing around him like a cape as he did so. Wrapped up most regally, despite the hilarious state of his hair and the boyish frown adorning his lips, Jimmy still managed to keep himself focused. “A little Anstruther in training, that Cortina girl,” Jimmy elaborated with a shudder, “She had her crawly little mitts all up me leg like it were bein’ served up for dinner. I wanted to saw the damn thing off with me butter knife and let her have it if it meant gettin’ away. Swear to Christ, though -- just would’ve  _ ripped  _ it right at the joint, if I could.”

“Yes, but she looked hardly old enough to’ve come out, if at all,” Thomas pointed out, trying to sort the facts from Jimmy’s frazzled nerves. “Why would she even want to? There’s no motive for a girl like that to go stealin’ valuables. She seems to’ve been gettin’ on just fine. Her shoes were very nice.”

“Word to the wise, chum,” said Jimmy, still wildly destroying their berth in a fashion that might have actually done their burglar proud; “Girls like that don’t need a  _ reason _ to filch pretty things. They just  _ do _ . Some rebellious malfunction they’ve got, I s’pose. She’d do it just to get at her parents or to look real mad and bad or somethin’. Trust me on this one. I’ve practically done case studies.” His speech picked up pace the further her got through his explanation, almost as if the babbling was more soothing for Jimmy himself than any other purpose.

The anguish in his eyes was clear, even though he wouldn’t look at Thomas directly. Once again, Thomas was at a loss as to how to comfort him, wanting nothing more than to wrap him up in the bedsheets and keep him safe from too-forward hands. Thomas wondered if the worry over the necklace and Anstruther was making him more anxious, and decided that all he could do was to help Jimmy solve that particular problem. “Alright. So that’s one. Anyone else? What about that Felix bloke?”

“Oh, you mean our resident  _ twit _ ?” Jimmy asked as the sheets fluttered around him, falling to the floor like leaves settling after a fierce storm. “That bloke’ll be lucky not to walk straight off the side of the bloody ship by morning. At which time, by the by, will I be so  _ very  _ pleased to see you take your prize money off him. Which you will naturally share with me, of course.”

“Of course,” Thomas agreed with a smile. “Well, he seemed pretty suspicious to me, anyway. I swear he was pattin’ our pockets down when he shook hands. Shady bloke, if you ask me.”

“Yeah, but also as stupid as one of your little chess pieces,” Jimmy said with a careless wave of his hand. “I wouldn’t trust him to steal the tie off his own neck. If you ask me, that Cecil Whatever-he-was-called was a sight more shady than old Felix.”

“Morgan,” Thomas supplied. “He was a bit too interested in my pocketwatch, I suppose, but he was right across the table from you the whole time. When would he have had chance?”

“When the sneaky devil decided to put his --” Jimmy was so full of righteous indignation, he almost forgot to listen to himself. Thomas noticed that Jimmy was quick to snatch the punchline back into the lockbox of his skull just as he was about to explain his problem with Cecil -- which was enough to cast suspicion on him as far as Thomas was concerned.

But Jimmy was already distracting himself with some other random search, this time shaking out each and every shoe that they had unpacked on the floor. Returning to his almost dubious breed of discussion, he dumped a loose coin out of one of his boots and said, “Or, let’s not forget the obvious no-good-doer -- Lady bloody Anstruther. That bitch’ll do a runner the second we put into port  _ anywhere  _ if she’s got it back.”

“When would she have had the time?” Thomas pointed out. “We’ve been with her almost the whole while.”

“I say without doubt that she’s courted the Devil, and a little break and enter would be nothin’ to her,” Jimmy huffed as he flung the boot he was holding across the room in anger.

Thomas tapped his chin. “I s’pose she could have crept in when we went out for that walk.”

“Yeah, offensive cigarette smoke my arse,” Jimmy agreed, crunching into a moody posture, arms folded. “She says she needs to stay so many paces away from our thoroughly  _ plebian  _ habits -- I’m  _ sure _ . I’ve seen her sit in a room full of men and cigars like she were the Queen of bloody Sheba. She could’ve nipped off easy. I’m tellin’ you.”

“I suppose we start with her, then,” Thomas suggested. “But we’ll have to be careful not to tip her off it’s gone, just in case it wasn’t her -- that necklace is all the power we have over her.” He considered the problem for a few more seconds.

“I’m not above drowning her as a backup,” Jimmy decided grimly.

“We probably don’t have to go that far. Why doesn’t one of us take her for breakfast in the morning, and the other can search her room?”

“Are we goin’ to draw lots on it?” Jimmy asked morosely, probably because he knew which task he was going to end up with whether he liked it or not.

Thomas smiled. “Or flip a coin.” He took one out of his pocket and balanced it on his thumb. “Heads or tails?” he asked, meeting Jimmy’s eyes. “Loser goes to breakfast with her majesty.”

“Tails,” said Jimmy. “I don’t like the crowns.”

Thomas snorted and flipped the coin, catching it on the back of his hand. “And now you have good reason to dislike them.” He showed Jimmy the coin. “It’s heads.”

“Of course it is,” groaned Jimmy. In the middle of the wreckage Jimmy had wrought through his searching, Thomas thought it might be a physical manifestation of the chaos that plagued Jimmy’s inner workings.

“I suppose we can swap if you want,” he offered. “But then you’d have to dig through her underthings.”

There was a beat or two where it seemed like Jimmy was truly weighing up the options. When he came to his internal conclusion, he blew his decision as a murky puff of unhappiness through flattened lips: “Well, I s’pose I’ll at least get to eat.”

“Fine, then,” Thomas said. “That’s our plan for the morning. But it’s late, and there’s nothing more we can do tonight; we ought to tidy up in here and get to sleep.” He made for the clothes first, dumping them all onto the bed to refold what had been in the drawers and rehang what had been in the wardrobe. Hopefully the creases would fall out on their own; there was no iron in there to press them out properly, unfortunately.

The mention of sleep seemed to remind Jimmy that the day had been long and that he was exhausted. With a little less meticulousness than Thomas, Jimmy sorted through the tangle of clothing until he found his pyjama bottoms and the blue-striped top that went with Thomas’s set. He balled them up as his own and shuffled to the other side of the tiny cabin to undress -- not that doing so really made much difference. Thomas turned his back and performed his own quick-change, swapping his trousers for the pyjama bottoms that matched the shirt Jimmy had “borrowed” and then taking off the rest of his day clothes. He decided against using Jimmy’s pyjama top, in favour of sleeping in his undershirt, which was long-sleeved enough to cover his scars.

When he turned around, he was met with the sight of Jimmy wearing his shirt. It was too long in the sleeve and wide at the shoulders, so the garment hung loosely on one side. He’d also buttoned it unevenly, a detail that didn’t seem to affect Jimmy much, though it made the very picture of him one that Thomas had to actively abstain from.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Ah, do you want to wash first, or should I…?” He kept his gaze directed anywhere but Jimmy.

“Have at it,” Jimmy said, already scrambling up into the top bunk. It didn’t seem like he had an interest in being first, last or anywhere in the middle as he burrowed face-first into the blankets, his naked feet sticking through the gap in the headboard in a surreal fashion.

Thomas went over to the washstand, pouring water onto his hands to wash his face. Water dripped from his nose and chin as he leaned over the bowl, before picking up the towel from the table and drying himself. Then he squeezed toothpaste onto his brush and polished his teeth; army habits died hard, and he liked the feeling of being clean. However he felt on the inside, the process of keeping scrubbed made him feel as though he was piecing himself back together. It was comforting to feel in control of at least that.

After wiping his face with the towel again, Thomas turned away from the washstand and noticed Jimmy looking through a crack in the blanket he had wrapped around his body. A bit taken aback to realise that he was being watched, Thomas said, “I’ve finished now, if you want to go.”

The lump of floral-printed duvet wiggled from side-to-side, an approximation of the word, ‘No’. Then it deflated against the thin mattress and shuffled into another shape. A stray arm with callused fingertips just visible beneath the striped pyjama cuff dropped over the side, hanging like an obstacle over Thomas’s lower bunk. Thomas turned off the light and dodged the hand as he climbed onto his bed, sitting frozen on the mattress for a few seconds as he wondered whether he ought to say anything or just keep quiet. He decided not to speak, and lay back against the pillows, pulling the blankets over himself.

Then he changed his mind. “Goodnight,” he called to Jimmy, staring at the underside of the top bunk. A gentle dip in the mattress circled the location of Jimmy’s figure above. Thomas vaguely wondered when Jimmy had become such an erratic sleeper, prone to odd habits like sleeping with his feet cushioned on the pillow and his face suffocated in the darkness of blankets.

In the muddy gloom, Jimmy’s dangling hand scrunched its fingers, like it was groping for something it couldn’t quite find. It carved odd pillars of shadow across Thomas’s face with each twitch. Thomas fought a short, inward skirmish with himself as he watched it, and then tentatively reached up to give Jimmy’s hand a squeeze. That seemed to do the trick, and Jimmy’s hand fell limp with fatigue, though Thomas did not let go until the rumbles of snoring began to rain down on him from above.

\--

The following morning, Thomas awoke to the quiet sounds of Jimmy hunting through his case. He lay still, listening, and recalling the feeling of Jimmy’s hand in his the previous night. He wondered if that would be a regular occurrence on this trip. He might not survive it if it was. The sleep deprivation would do him in, if nothing else. It had taken him an hour to drop off the night before, with a head full of questions about what the gesture might have meant -- and just as many admonishments that it meant  _ nothing _ . Eventually, Thomas sat up and prepared for the day, he and Jimmy moving easily around each other in the small room like well-rehearsed choreography.

“How long d’ya think you’ll need?” Jimmy wondered as he slid his tie underneath his collar. It was a very fetching shade of green. “You know, so I can keep her away.”

“Half an hour, maybe, for a thorough job,” Thomas suggested, slipping his arms into his shirt sleeves.

“Right, so, time for eggs, toast and maybe a sausage if I’m lucky,” Jimmy said mostly to himself as he fastened his collar stud and went about knotting his tie. He put on a grey waistcoat and finished the look with a matching sports coat and a stickpin shaped like a trefoil. Thomas noticed he had cufflinks to match the tiepin and self-consciously pulled the cuffs of his own shirt lower. His only cufflinks were a pair of simple onyx ones he’d stolen from his father before being carted off to his first estate as a hallboy; once a trophy, he was suddenly embarrassed by them.

“You’re very dapper,” he said, then bit his tongue for calling attention to it. He kept talking, to stop Jimmy responding; “So, are we ready?”

“Only if you are, my sneaky friend,” Jimmy said jovially, his discontent from the night before seemingly forgotten. “I hope I don’t look  _ too  _ good,” Jimmy told his reflection in the vanity mirror, where he’d stopped to run a comb through his hair. “I’d hate for the old bird to get the wrong idea.”

Thomas gave the matter careful thought and decided that there was no response he could give that wouldn’t be either inappropriate or insulting. “Let’s go, then,” he said, giving his tie a final tweak. “I’ll give you a few minutes to get her out and then I’ll get started.”

Jimmy nodded and swept out of the room like a man on a mission. Thomas was grateful he didn’t have to hear the details of it, certain that Jimmy was putting on his most painfully fake airs to appease the dowager. He waited until he was sure they had left, which Jimmy signalled with an unnecessarily loud exclamation of, “What a  _ marvellous _ day it is!” His footfalls were hilariously loud and measured as he stomped off towards the galley.

Thomas counted to twenty to be sure they would be out of sight and earshot before pushing open their door and giving a cursory glance up and down the corridor. He walked neatly over to Lady A’s room, seeing no reason to creep about, and turned the handle, which Jimmy had left unlocked for him. Inside, the scent of Anstruther’s perfume already pervaded the air. Thomas took a moment to stand in the middle of the room, hands in his jacket pockets, surveying the furniture and making a mental note of any likely hiding spots.

Starting with the bed, Thomas began a meticulous examination of the room. He stripped off the sheets, flipped over the thin mattress, kneeled to look underneath and ran his hand around all the edges which abutted the wall. Nothing. Thomas remade the bed and turned next to the bureau, pushing aside the sheaf of blank writing paper, turning each drawer upside down and carefully replacing it. He made sure to put everything back as close to its original position as possible.

He switched his attention to the washstand, inverting the empty jug to look underneath. The bowl looked loose, so he prised it out with his fingernails to leave a circular hole in the top. Thomas put one hand into the box, searching around. His fingers caught on something papery. After sliding it closer, he lifted it out and took a good look at what he had unearthed.

The half-a-dozen or so sheets of paper were crumpled; perhaps Lady A had been holding them when Jimmy had come for her and had shoved them hastily into a pocket. The first, on the face of it, seemed to proclaim her right of ownership to the necklace they were now searching for… but there was something a bit  _ off  _ about it. Thomas had seen quite a few of these certificates before; his father had dealt with plenty of antique and valuable clocks, which came with paperwork to prove authenticity. But this one didn’t look right. The shape of the seal was minutely different, and the colour of the paper was wrong. Thomas read it very carefully; yes, he was sure. The certificate was a forgery -- the necklace had been stolen goods before it had ever been nicked from them.

He flicked through the other papers, curious if it was just the one that was a fluke, or if there was a pattern. He was not disappointed. There were more falsified certificates pertaining to other pieces of presumably stolen jewellery, but most interesting of all was the secondary paperwork that was required for an official appraisal of the value of each piece. There were two signatures required on each document to authenticate its corresponding item: one was from the appraiser who had inspected the jewellery and given his mark of approval; the other was from his retainer, a Mrs. Betty Anne Ruther. Thomas read the name at least four times to be sure he wasn’t leaping to conclusions with how close it sounded to  _ Anstruther _ . It then came upon him that the alias Jimmy had baptised Lady A with at dinner might not have been such an arbitrary selection after all. Revealing these papers would create a massive scandal for her if it turned out that she had herself mixed up in some sort of counterfeit jewellry operation; the threat of it was more than enough to keep her out of England regardless of detail.

This was exactly what they needed to get Lady Anstruther out of Jimmy’s life forever.

\--

Jimmy returned to their cabin looking as though he’d run a marathon, not just a loop around the breakfast buffet. He wordlessly collapsed onto Thomas’s bottom bunk, lying on his back with his feet kicked up on their heels as he stared at the slats supporting the mattress above. “We’ve got to kill her,” said Jimmy by way of conversation. “I was mad to think there was any other way.” 

Thomas almost smiled, but he knew how serious Jimmy probably was. “What happened?”

“I can’t tell if bein’ a widow’s what’s made her like this, or if she were always a weird old bat,” Jimmy went on, propping himself up on his elbows so he could at least seek out Thomas’s face while they spoke. “I think she really has it in her ruddy head that all…  _ this _ ” -- here he twirled his hand wildly for emphasis -- “is some elaborate ploy on my part to win her affection. Or somethin’.”

“Well, I have news for you on that front,” Thomas began, crossing the room and leaning over to put a cold cigarette between Jimmy’s lips. He pressed the lighter into Jimmy’s hand as he continued: “I didn’t find the necklace but guess what I  _ did _ happen upon?”

“A pardon from the King, excusing me for when I shove her into the sea?” Jimmy hoped, flicking the lighter against his cigarette. Once again, it was hard to discern how much of his morbid ideation was in jest. There was a pause, and then Jimmy opened his mouth like he’d had an idea, though no words came out. He drooped a bit, and then said, “I s’pose what you’re sayin’ is that either she didn’t do it -- or she’s already managed to get away with it, and we’re royally fucked.” 

Thomas wondered whether Jimmy could work it out for himself, and handed over the papers he had found without comment. He watched as Jimmy accepted them, looking unimpressed until he gave them a cursory once-over. Jimmy flicked over the certificates of authenticity without much interest, but it was the value appraisals that gave him pause. He shuffled the papers loudly and held them so close to his face that the tip of his nose nearly speared them. “That tricky minx,” was Jimmy’s initial reaction once he’d satisfied himself that he was reading correctly. 

He winched himself up into a proper sitting position, now rustling the sheaf of papers in Thomas’s direction. Thomas sat at the foot of the bed, Jimmy’s toes barely an inch from his knees. “I can’t believe I never worked it out ‘til now, but I’m not at all surprised,” Jimmy informed Thomas, oblivious to the fact that Thomas had already picked out most of the inconsistencies and weird details about the documents. “Y’know how I call her Betty and that? Y’know it’s not such a random choice, right?” He was now holding up one of the documents, a dull fingernail pressed into one of the signatures belonging to the infamous ‘Mrs. Betty Anne Ruther’. 

“I’d rather worked that out,” Thomas replied, waiting for the rest of the story.

“Of course you did.  _ You’re  _ cleverer than the rest,” Jimmy told him, flipping the papers around so that he could stare at them properly, each one a trophy of victory over Lady A. “But I s’pose she’s clever too, if she’s been stampin’ her false name on stuff like this. Y’know, I’d never thought about it before….” He trailed off as his mind shifted gears, dropped into a bucket of memory with a hollow echo as he listlessly recalled: “We’d get calls on the wire for Mrs. Betty quite a bit, even back when her husband were breathin’. I used to think she had some…  _ other _ man, but I guess it ran deeper than all that. A bigger scam.”

“And now we’ve got proof in our hands,” Thomas answered, filled-up with victory. “We can get her with this, Jimmy. We can stop her ever coming back to England, just with the threat of what revealin’ this lot will do to her.” He met Jimmy’s eyes, which were shining out of the bunk’s beige gloom. “You’re safe,” he added, more quietly.

But Jimmy was already reeling with possible caveats. “But how do we know all this stuff’s been stolen with her knowledge?” Jimmy fretted, sure there was some way that even this would blow up in their faces. “I can already see her pleadin’ that she had no idea, and look at these dirty workin’ boys tryin’ to frame her and get her for all she’s got? We’ll lose in the end -- our sort always does.” He twisted his knuckles into his eye sockets and huffed morosely, “The only doomed one round here is me. How’d I think I could pull a fast one on the likes of  _ her _ ?” He threatened to sob with the tremble in his shoulders, though he also seemed determined not to -- a brave boy’s face. 

Thomas’s fingernails curled into his palms with the effort not to reach out to him. “It’s a start at the very least. And you know what bloody  _ society’s _ like. The suggestion of it’s enough, trust me. A whiff of scandal and she’s ruined; barely even matters if it’s true, but we’ve got  _ proof _ . Jimmy…” Thomas bit his lip, wishing that Jimmy would let himself be comforted by his words. “We can do this.”

“But how do you know?” An unmistakable sniffle interrupted Jimmy’s breathing, and he very cautiously inched towards Thomas as he murmured, “How can you promise?”  

“This is  _ us _ we’re talking about,” Thomas said, with a smile. “How could we not make it all work out,  _ somehow _ ? We’re criminal geniuses, or have you forgotten?” Best not to mention Thomas’s own criminal dealings. They wouldn’t really inspire Jimmy with confidence. But he had learned a lot since then: caution, the necessity to question one’s business partners. In any case, his meddling on behalf of another always seemed to work out better than his own enterprises.

Then, a hint of smile curled Jimmy’s mouth, as if just hearing Thomas’s confidence in the matter was enough to tack up his own. “And I  _ s’pose  _ it makes sense why a dowager with more fancy things than we’ll ever hope to see in our lives would be  _ so nettled  _ over us filchin’ a -- what did she call it? A  _ trinket _ ?” Jimmy barked with laughter, and the papers chattered like excited bits of confetti in his jarring hands. “Maybe we  _ are  _ onto somethin’,” he finally acquiesced, practically bleeding relief. “I s’pose I just never thought that….” His sentence again tumbled off into wistful silence, but at least there was a new spring in Jimmy’s demeanor, warming out the cold of his doubt. 

“Never thought what?” Thomas prompted.

Jimmy settled for a shrug, which rolled off his shoulders with a jerky lift. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I guess I just don’t ever think!” Then he laughed in a way that was probably meant to cover up some secret insecurity, though Thomas was pleased to see him looking so happy. 

“Alright, alright,” said Thomas, making a weak show of settling Jimmy down. “I s’pose our next bit is to work out who really  _ does  _ have that necklace. We need it back. Lady A won’t know what we’ve found, so the best we’ve got to keep her under thumb is dangling it over her head.” 

Jimmy nodded emphatically, still giddy as he read and reread Lady Anstruther’s damning false signature linking her to stolen jewels. The rest of it had become a superfluous game to him, and it was telling in the way he said, “Alright, so whose cabin are we raidin’ next?” 

“We could perhaps be a little more subtle than that,” Thomas suggested. “Have you ever heard of Poirot?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy this little story arc, which sort of surprised us in how it evolved. More ridiculous things to happen as they continue on! Do let us know if you have an idea on whodunit ;D


	6. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy's plan to investigate more suspects doesn't quite go according to plan.

 

If it was possible, Jimmy would have held every person that had an opportunity to pickpocket his key under equal suspicion, but he knew that wasn’t practical. He wasn’t the Agatha Christie expert Thomas seemed to be, but he’d read two or three of her mysteries and felt that was sufficient enough in figuring out the proper order of things. Firstly, they’d eliminated their prime suspect -- Lady Anstruther -- and had walked away with a new clue for their efforts. That left Addie, the flirtatious debutante, Cecil, the weird watch fanatic, the shifty valet on the deck and bumbling old Felix, with whom he and Thomas had an appointment after breakfast. They had a bet to cash in on.   

“Who do you like for it?” Jimmy asked ambiguously as they walked along the foredeck, to where they’d planned to meet Felix and secure their winnings. He made every effort not to let himself grow over-excited over how good things seemed to be turning out for them, lest he slip and tumble back down with backlash he had yet to encounter. Considering the risks he’d taken on this one, he wasn’t sure there was getting back up after choosing to skate on such thin ice willingly.

“Seems like Addie spent a lot of time in your pocket,” Thomas said in a strange, measured voice as though he were choosing his words out of a bag, one at a time.

Jimmy shuddered despite the balmy breeze that wafted around them. “Stupid tart,” Jimmy grumbled, twisted with agitation as he even recalled the situation. On the one hand, she did have plenty of opportunity, but on the other, she didn’t strike him as particularly bright, either. Then again, if his instinct that she was like a Lady Anstruther in miniature was to be believed, he supposed there wasn’t much that was outside her diabolical repertoire. He might have complained about this in greater detail, but didn’t want to alarm Thomas with any of his scruples about garnering attention.

Instead, he just said, “I think that Cecil fellow is worse. Seemed to be awfully keen on baubles. Y’know, like that smart watch of yours. I swear he saw it halfway across the room.”

“He can’t have known about the necklace, though,” Thomas pointed out. “Seems an odd chance to take.”

“Yeah, but is that watch of yours worth anythin’?” Jimmy asked, genuinely curious. He’d seen Thomas with it for as long as he’d known him, and it had always been one of his definitive features. “S’pose he figured someone whose friends carry round smart watches would have more treasures stashed with their luggage?”

“It’s worth a little, perhaps, but more to me than to anyone else.” Thomas pulled the watch from his pocket, looking at its closed case pensively. He ran his thumb over it before tucking it away again. “And it’s not much to look at. I shouldn’t think a glance at it’s enough to gamble on, unless you’re _really_ desperate.”

“I don’t know, just… _somethin’_ about him don’t sit right with me,” Jimmy muttered as the five points of Cecil’s fingertips seared against his knee with terrible recollection. The almost convenient fumble of hands seemed like a show to Jimmy -- who was well-versed in the art of performance. But it was another detail he was nervous to tell Thomas about, especially when Thomas was probably right that there wasn’t much else to it besides the nausea that turned his stomach every time he thought about it.

“Well… I suppose we’ll keep an eye on him, then,” Thomas allowed, though he still seemed confused by Jimmy’s fixation on Cecil.

“So I guess until we figure out what’s the crack with that smarmy valet, Addie’s where we’ll start,” Jimmy decided just in time to espy Felix loitering a few yards ahead. He seemed to be inspecting one of the covered lifeboats with the empty scrutiny of someone aiming to appear more curious than he actually was. Jimmy waved, though it went ignored; he didn’t much feel like wasting his voice.

“Good morning, chaps,” Felix called when he finally noticed them. He seemed a bit quieter than the night before. Jimmy suppressed a smirk as he thought how Thomas had beaten him.

“Ready to concede defeat?” Jimmy spoke up, an overeager supporter of Thomas’s wiles. He loved putting out the noses of people that bothered him, especially as sport.

“Well, I rather have to,” Felix acknowledged. “Can’t argue with the crew, eh, what? One would hope _they_ know where they’re going.”

“An astonishing number of people in this world seem not to,” Thomas commented to Jimmy, though he seemed to have intended for Felix to overhear. Jimmy silently counted himself as part of that number, but kept it to himself.

With no shortage in fanfare, Felix brandished the promised coin from his jacket with the flair of a magician. He rolled the crown between his thumb and forefinger and then palmed it, producing it as if by magic in his other hand. “Voila!” he announced proudly as he presented it to Thomas, who seemed to find the display amateurish. He plucked up the small coin with a haste that disappointed Felix, who then said, “Mm, my niece always liked that one. Tough crowd, what?”

“In case you weren’t sure, we’re older than _six,_ ” Jimmy interjected nastily.

“Of course, of course!” Felix blustered. “I just thought you might find it amusing.”

Jimmy turned to Thomas with a very straight face, telling him matter-of-factly, “I think we should spend our six-year-old crown on plenty of booze and slappers.” He didn’t have to look at Felix to know there was horror written across his face.

“I -- well, I say --” Felix spluttered.

“I can’t abide cheap whiskey,” Thomas said seriously. “We’ll have to stick to the slappers.”

“And most of that sort’ll usually put it out for free,” Jimmy contemplated aloud, chewing his thumb as if solving his conundrum was more pressing than locating the stolen necklace. “Well, I guess we’ll have to find our own thrills,” he decided, giving Thomas a hearty whack on the back. Thomas coughed sharply. For a brief moment, Jimmy’s mind danced with the possibilities of what that might entail if he and Thomas were left up to their own devices. He swallowed, and then demanded a cigarette of Thomas.

Felix regarded them for a moment as they lit up, opening and closing his mouth until his brain finally supplied some words. “There’s always the dance tonight. They’re setting up in the dining hall right after dinner, to celebrate the start of the voyage.”

Jimmy looked for Thomas’s reaction to the news; Thomas seemed ambivalent, puffing away on his cigarette. “We’ll go,” Jimmy decided.

“And what about that friend of yours, ah, Betty, wasn’t it, eh?”

Jimmy looked Felix up and down, the very picture of judgment. “You’re goin’ to have to dress a sight better than _that_ ,” he glibly informed Felix, wrinkling his nose at the color of the other man’s suit. The brackish brown reminded him of vomit. He grabbed Thomas by the elbow of his sleeve and tugged, indicating that he was ready to move on, though it was mostly so he could mutter under his breath, “ _Twit_.”  

\--

Despite all of Thomas’s thoughtful packing, it apparently hadn’t occurred to him to bring along dress white tie and tails. He lamented this as he and Jimmy began to get ready for the dance that evening, though Jimmy shrugged it off easily: “We’ll still be _far_ more swell than the lot of ‘em together,” he assured Thomas, who was unhappily fixing a black tie around his neck as if it were a band of mourning and shame. “It’s only people like Lady A who really mind what colour you’ve got on, right?”

“Well _I_ mind,” Thomas countered moodily. He finished the knot and glowered at it in the mirror for a moment.

“You’d look slick in a barrel, I’d wager,” Jimmy said, and Thomas blinked at Jimmy’s reflection, his hands frozen with surprise.

Quickly realising that his offhand comment had been noticed, Jimmy flipped around and anxiously went digging through his drawer of valuables, searching for a fresh pair of cufflinks to go with his change in clothes. He was wearing his best suit, a navy blue affair that was tailored especially for him. He’d always envied Thomas’s pinstripe suit of a similar cut, and had considered the ownership of such an ensemble his first mark of success. Not that he’d ever admit it to Thomas; he still worried Thomas might think him vain and stupid, especially for something as superficial as that.

“I mean, y’know, everyone looks good in a tux,” he went on, his instinct to fill the emptiness with idle chatter an impossible habit to squash; “But you don’t need one to impress. That’s all.” He was nodding to himself; that surely helped.  

There was silence from behind him, not even the whisper of sliding fabric. Then Thomas cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

Jimmy’s questing fingers stilled inside the little box he kept his cufflinks and studs in, unable to determine what sort of tone he was hearing from Thomas. Arbitrarily plucking up the first matching pair he could find, he turned around with a carefully placed mask of unimportance over his distress. “I mean, clothes don’t make the man, yeah?” he said warily, crushing his hand around the cufflinks, which were stabbing into his flesh with their findings.

“I think Tom Branson proves that,” Thomas said, sounding distracted as he pulled his waistcoat up over his shoulders.

“Exactly,” said Jimmy, squeezing the cufflinks like they were a grounding talisman to keep him bolstered. He glanced Thomas up and down, assessing the waistcoat he’d donned for the night. “See, you’re already sharper than me,” he assured Thomas with a private smile as he watched Thomas return to the knot of his bowtie. “No need to worry about how you’ll come off, I bet.”

“I’ll come off as a man in black tie who should be in white tie,” Thomas said, persisting in his gloominess. He looked down at his covered wrists, tugging on his shirt cuffs with unhappiness heavy on his brow.

“Oh, come on. Look at me! Let me be the underdressed fool!” Jimmy exclaimed, determined to erase the bother from Thomas’s face. It was strange to him, seeing Thomas so worked up over the way people regarded him, when he had once been so proud to carry himself however he pleased. “D’ya just not feel fancy enough?” Jimmy wondered, supposing that maybe a lifetime of service had simply thrust expectations of formality upon Thomas that were difficult to shake so quickly. The prick of the cufflinks stabbing the fold of his palm reinstated itself with a slight gum of blood as he tightened his fists with vehemence, preemptively annoyed at the industry that had sought to steal Thomas Barrow’s pride. An idea then flitted to him.

“Would you like to have these?” Jimmy asked, holding out the cufflinks locked up in his hand. They were gold rounds engraved with small gramophone horns, a silly nod to his trade. “If it’ll help make you feel a bit classier?”

Thomas shot them barely a glance before shaking his head. “I can’t take those, Jimmy. I’ve got my own.” But he did not desist in fidgeting with the ends of his sleeves.

“Well, I likely have more cufflinks than Lord Grantham with the way I seem to accumulate ‘em,” Jimmy insisted as he took a few bold steps towards Thomas, offering them again. “I really don’t mind.”

“They’re yours,” Thomas denied, not even looking up this time as he reached for his dinner jacket and shrugged it on. “You earned them. They’re yours.”

“Right, they’re mine,” Jimmy agreed, and then grabbed for Thomas’s arm with the quick reflexes of a sly cat. He grasped Thomas firmly by the wrist and upturned his palm, pressing the jewellery into Thomas’s hand pointedly; “And I want you to have ‘em. A gift. From me.”  

Thomas tugged his hand away almost violently, the cufflinks loose in his fist. “That _hur_ \-- you’re bleeding. Jimmy --” He reached out for Jimmy’s hand in turn, abandoning the cufflinks on the vanity and uncurling Jimmy’s fingers to expose the tiny wounds.

“What?” Jimmy drawled, distracted by the snakebite wounds dotting his palm. Suckling the pinpricks with nursing lips, his attention flickered back up to Thomas in time to catch Thomas picking at his sleeves again, which hung out from beneath his dinner jacket in a slovenly manner that didn’t seem quite like him. He thought it odd how Thomas kept worrying at the edges of both shirt and jacket in an almost neurotic manner, pinching their hems together like it bothered him to leave it alone.

“Maybe you should get ‘em looked at,” Thomas suggested quietly.

“I’ve done worse fallin’ down,” Jimmy insisted, kissing his palm until the blood stopped flowing. It stained his mouth a coppery red, which he swiped at with the tip of his tongue. Thomas was still behaving oddly, and Jimmy put a stop to himself, figuring it was something in his mannerism. Instead, he made a shooing motion at the discarded cufflinks and urged Thomas again, “Come on, take the damn cufflinks. I don’t have much, really, but I’ll happily share what I do, yeah?”

The look on Thomas’s face, watching the anxiety melt into something soft and vulnerable, made Jimmy feel as though he had said something far more profound than he had been planning to. Without further protest, Thomas slowly picked up one stud and turned it between his forefinger and thumb, as though the gramophone engraving might change if he examined it at the right angle. Then he diligently unfastened his onyx cufflinks and tried to push the new ones through the buttonhole.

“Here, let me help you with that -- you’re a proper mess,” Jimmy interjected, noticing the funny way Thomas was attempting to clasp them with his jacket still on. He made another snatch at Thomas, this time catching his hand with intention. But just as he was about to push up Thomas’s jacket sleeve, Thomas took an enormous step back, like Jimmy’s very proximity had poisoned his air. Jimmy was too shocked at the display to react.

“It’s fine,” Thomas said, would-be calmly, but Jimmy could detect a slight tremor in his voice. “I can do it.” He struggled through the fastenings on his own, his mouth tight, as though he was aware of the way Jimmy was staring at him.

“Right, of course you can,” Jimmy conceded, his voice wobbly. He wasn’t quite sure what had just transpired, but it concerned him. He wanted to ask about it, but he only supposed he would insult Thomas more with his nosiness. He stowed it, rubbed his nose and then said, “So I s’pose we’ll go get Mrs. Betty and be off?”  

Thomas took a deep breath and met Jimmy’s eyes again with a smile. “Yes,” Thomas agreed. “Let’s go.”

They picked up Lady A and made their way to the dance, though Jimmy’s enthusiasm was dampened by thoughts of what had just happened with Thomas. He gave Anstruther the key to her own door at last, thinking that there was nowhere she could escape to while they were out at sea, and at least they wouldn’t have to take her back if she wanted to leave early. Which, judging by the unimpressed look on her face, was likely. Jimmy was in too much of a mood to care.

He tried to focus on the matter of the necklace. Mostly so he wouldn’t focus on Thomas.

It seemed like everyone on the second class decks had turned out for the event. The dining cabin had been redecorated rather tastefully and the lights turned down to a romantic amber. If Thomas was happy to discover that the dress of the other attendees was nowhere near as formal as he’d been envisioning, Jimmy couldn’t tell. It was all a bit of a whirl, and Jimmy decided he would have his first dance with a gin. Anstruther went to the bar with him at his heels, though whether she was after a drink or a waltz was anyone’s guess.

Jimmy swallowed his drink in one go and quickly ordered a second before anyone had a chance to stop him. He was consumed by Thomas and his weirdness about the cufflinks. He made a concerted effort to try and nurse his bevvie at a more reasonable clip as he surveyed the room, full of couples spinning around the floor. A large gramophone in the back corner spat out popular American jazz numbers. He was quick to recognize the distinctive trill of Jelly Roll Morton -- a favorite pianist of his -- and the boozy stride that ruled most of the dancers. Then he caught sight of Thomas, his arm wrapped around a tiny brunette in a drop-waisted number that sparkled. He’d had no idea that Thomas knew how to bunny hug, and the discovery felt like a slight. He slurped more liberally at his gin.

“I could use a start myself, darling,” came Lady Anstruther’s far-off voice, a jarring interrupting to his swimming thoughts. “I still like a bit of cognac.”

As she spoke, Jimmy witnessed Thomas laughing. _Laughing_ . He burned wondering what a random stranger could have said that was _so incredibly witty_ as to make Thomas laugh, when hardly a half hour before, Thomas had acted as though Jimmy disturbed him. It left Jimmy feeling stale, like something between them had dried up and gone without him even realizing. Then he felt foolish standing there in his best suit, which reminded him so much of Thomas, caught in a situation he’d only had the bravery to follow through on because he thought Thomas was his _bezzie mate_ \-- watching Thomas dance with a girl like they were the only people in the world. Suddenly, Jimmy hated Jelly Roll Morton and every godforsaken song he’d ever dared to compose. He had a mind to kick over the gramophone and rip the needle into the record until it caught.

“Cognac,” Lady A interrupted his thoughts again. “Get me one, darling, won’t you?”

Absently, Jimmy turned back to the bartender and requested the aperitif with a voice that belonged to a hollow ghost. He handed the drink to Anstruther dumbly and let her sip it while she chatted at him. Somewhere in the slog of things she said to him was a request to dance, which Jimmy agreed to with a nod that had come as an automatic response, not rapt attention. His cheeks burned pleasantly with gin; Thomas and his brunette spun by.

He found himself being led out to the dancefloor, falling into a pattern of acquiescence that a younger version of himself had once been trapped in with Anstruther. It irritated him to be back in that situation, but at least dancing with her meant that he could not see Thomas for more than a glimpse at a time. And he did like dancing, though Lady A would never be his first choice of partner.

“This is a lovely development,” Lady A giggled, clearly not as expert with her liquor as Jimmy -- or perhaps a bit more willing to let herself go. “I wish we’d have had more opportunities like this when you were mine.”

“Funny, I always found the opportunities were neverending,” Jimmy hissed contrarily. Steam was practically pouring out of his ears: Anstruther was wrapped in his embrace and Thomas was passing just behind the line of her bony shoulders, this time with a blonde. She had short, curly hair.

“Yes,” said Lady A, “but always under cover of darkness.” Then she had the nerve to giggle like she was some sort of amused schoolgirl. “The sneaking about certainly added to the _amour fou_ , wouldn’t you say?”

Jimmy sucked down his urge to retch at the very memory. He was quite disgusted with himself when he considered how eagerly he’d let Lady Anstruther get her claws into him, thinking enough of himself that he’d somehow be clever and handsome enough to keep her wrapped around his little finger for his own convenience. How incredibly wrong he’d been -- how stupid. It seemed he hadn’t improved much. Thomas would have _never_ have allowed himself to be duped in such a ridiculously plain fashion.

“May I cut in?” someone else said. Jimmy snapped back to the present, unsure if he was relieved or not that it was Addie who had manifested beside them. She wore a particularly flashy feathered headband low on her forehead.

“No, you may not,” Lady Anstruther replied coolly, though her gloved thumb bore possessively into Jimmy’s collarbone.

But Jimmy, suddenly sensing an opportunity to mine Addie for a bit more information regarding her whereabouts when his cabin had been intruded upon, thought otherwise. “It’s hard to be popular, Betty,” he said in just as crisp a tone as Lady A had used on Addie; “Surely you understand how that can be.”

Addie covered a laugh with the back of her hand, unable to stop herself from saying, “Yes. It’s not everyday you find a grown woman out to dinner in a nightgown. Sure to be a hit.”

Lady A smiled, though Jimmy had never seen anything less friendly. “I wear a nightgown better than you do that frock.” She looked Addie up and down judgmentally. “Where _did_ you get it, so I know where to avoid?”

“Somewhere you probably can’t afford,” said Addie, who obviously had no idea she was talking down to a dowager countess.

Lady Anstruther looked supremely amused at this novel experience of being belittled by a middle-class girl barely out of her teen years. She raised an eyebrow at Jimmy and smiled, but Jimmy refused to share in her mirth. “Honestly, darling, you can’t possibly want to dance with that little minx.”

Jimmy couldn’t deny it, though he didn’t like the alternative much either.

“You’re far too good for her, or why would you be with me? No, no, come along. Good _bye_ , Adrianna.” She swept away, carrying Jimmy along with her. He did not appreciate the way she curled up that much closer to him with each movement they made. He wished he could say for sure her clinginess had more to do with Addie than their shared history, but he knew he’d be lying to himself to think it. His night was not shaping up well.

“Maybe we ought to take a break,” Jimmy suggested, even though they’d barely danced one song. “I’m parched.”

By parched, he meant the cloying grasp of sobriety.

“You need to pump the brakes,” Jimmy told Lady A as he handed her another cognac in a sort of barter. They had relocated to their previous spot by the bar. “No one here knows who you really are. Don’t blow it.”

“Oh, but darling,” said Lady A as she accepted the cognac, “where’s the fun in that?”

“It’s not meant to be fun,” Jimmy snapped around the rim of his glass; “Not for _you_ anyway.” Through the clinking ice, he tried to seek out Thomas again, even though his insides twisted at what he might find.

“Luckily, I’m quite used to making my own fun,” Anstruther replied with a leer. She made no secret of the improper way she was sizing him up, lingering on sections of his anatomy he rather wished she wouldn’t. Even her stare felt unpleasant, like he was covered with thousands of crawling beetles, tiny legs and chattering pincers.

There he was. Thomas was dancing with _Addie_ now, just to make this entire night even more terrible. Addie was smiling coyly at him, looking up sweetly through her eyelashes. And… Thomas was smiling back.

Thomas didn’t like women in _that way_ , Jimmy knew that, had known that almost as long as he had known Thomas -- but that didn’t allay the irrational fear that _something_ … something was happening. Between Thomas and Addie. Jimmy watched as Thomas leaned in close to speak directly into Addie’s ear.

“The girl doesn’t look _very_ disappointed to have missed you,” Anstruther spoke up. Jimmy wasn’t sure whether she was annoyed or satisfied by the news, and didn’t much care; he was too busy trying to sort through his own feelings on the matter. “She’s quite happy to settle for big brother.”

“Thomas is _not my brother_ ,” Jimmy said emphatically.

With another gulp of gin, Jimmy came slightly closer to a solution, though once again, it was in matters that had nothing to do with the larger mystery he should have been focused on. All of that was put on hold at the very important clarification that with the exception of Thomas, he had little interest in anyone else there. It was a funny thing he couldn’t properly explain if he’d been asked, too busy trying to figure out how to get a moment with Thomas. Which, at present, seemed like an impossible task. The room spun with liquor, Thomas in the middle of it all, and Jimmy just wanted to order all of it to a halt at the top of his lungs. Just thirty seconds with Thomas where everything stopped and Jimmy could _think_. He suddenly wanted to go, even though coming had been his whim in the first place. He felt like he was the master of his own troubles.

If that was the case, it was time to take up his own fortune in this matter as well. He abandoned Lady Anstruther with the bartender and cut through the dancers, careless of the steps he threw off tempo and the pairs he pushed asunder on his straight line towards Thomas and Addie. His gait translated into a heavy stomp the nearer he got; he hated the way Addie had poised her hand on Thomas’s shoulder like they were familiar.

“--one I cared about, a ring wouldn’t be the slightest bit important,” Addie was saying earnestly. Thomas nodded seriously in response.

Jimmy wanted to explode at the snippet in their conversation. The best he could think to do was hover like an angry cloud just to the side, ready to pop with thunderous reaction should he hear something that cemented all his irrational fears about Thomas. He felt like they were rowing even though they hadn’t exchanged strong words or even had a disagreement. He stewed, miserable.

Thomas seemed suddenly to notice him. “Ah, Jimmy,” he greeted warmly, but it was a fake heat. “I’ve been getting better acquainted with lovely Addie. She’s quite delightful.”

Inwardly, Jimmy pushed between the two of them and growled, ‘Delightful my _arse_.’ The fantasy was apparent on his face, a scowl drawing unflattering lines down his cheeks, which were now twice as red as they’d been with just the help of alcohol. He was admittedly more cordial in his dealing with the situation than his brain dictated he should be, resting a genial hand on Thomas’s shoulder to keep him still. He said in a flat tone, “I’m bored to death. This wasn’t nearly as excitin’ as I thought it might be.”

Thomas adjusted his arm around Addie’s waist, making a too-perfect tableau as he turned to address Jimmy properly. “Well, don’t let me keep you. Feel free to go on back to the room.” He pulled out his pocketwatch and detached the key from its chain. “Here. Just leave the door on the latch for me. I’ll be along later.”

It was too much for Jimmy. The grease of gin loosened his jaw, overflowing with turbulence. “Yeah, well, don’t get too cosy,” he hissed with a level of hysteria that seemed to completely flabbergast Thomas. “And don’t expect me to wait up for you, neither.” Then he snatched the key from Thomas with a wide swipe of his arm, accidentally knocking Addie as his hand arced back around to his side.

“Mind out,” Thomas warned, the admonishment so bizarre it made Jimmy stare.

Then his unjust annoyance caught up, and he hurled an uncouth, “Same goes for you!” He shoved off with a noticeable attitude, his back turned on the wounded expression on Thomas’s face as he watched him go.

Jimmy was just sober enough to have a general idea of whereabouts their cabin was, but also just drunk enough to have difficulty orienting himself in that direction. He chose at random with a twirling finger, and then marched off with purpose, telling himself that if he was wrong, then Thomas could be left to worry if he’d gotten lost, or fallen asleep in a cupboard, or drowned or died or _something_. He was feeling very vindictive, though he’d quite forgotten why. Then a picture of Thomas laughing flooded his brain, practically leaking through his nostrils: he took up his heavy step again, hands fisted in his pockets as he stormed onwards to destinations only vaguely charted.

By the grace of God or some other such nonsense, Jimmy eventually found their door, six portholes in from the end of the corridor -- his only real benchmark for remembering it, drunk or otherwise. He kicked the heavy door in after unlocking it and threw the key into his sock drawer haphazardly. It was followed by a metallic hail of cufflinks and studs as he started to pull himself apart. He flung his favourite blue coat across the room, where it hit the wall and fell the the floor in a rumble of navy fabric; he almost ripped out a button with the force he used to pull off his braces. One shoe landed near the foot of the bunk, while his other ended up on top of Thomas’s valise. Then he crawled onto the bottom bunk, which already carried a vague atmosphere of tobacco about it, and wrapped his arms around the pillow. He stared into an endless void of fat stripes for a period of time that had no count. He felt anxious and stupid, and had the insane wish to be put out of his misery for reasons that he didn’t understand.

The click of the latch and the whine of hinges interrupted his self-loathing. He curled more tightly around the pillow, willing himself to become small enough to hide beneath it. Then it would be easy to smother his loneliness.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let us know if you still like this nonsense! The chapter title is a Cab Callaway song from the early 30's ;D


	7. Embraceable You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy explains what's been bothering him.

 

Thomas had never in his life felt so ridiculous as he had after snatching his arm away from Jimmy. And Thomas’s life included hiding and subsequently losing a dog, and then searching desperately for said dog, only to discover that her owner already had her back. While looking a terrible mess all the while. That was a pretty high bar for feeling ridiculous.

Those damn cufflinks.

Part of him -- a very, very small part -- wondered if he oughtn’t just _tell_ Jimmy. Jimmy was his friend, after all -- maybe Thomas could just show him his abused forearms and say, ‘I was afraid and lonely and I cut myself,’ and Jimmy would say, ‘Oh, alright,’ and it would all be fine. Jimmy wouldn’t make a big deal of it. But he’d know why Thomas had flinched away from him and he wouldn’t grab him again.

He was just… _embarrassed_ . It was _embarrassing_ to think of showing Jimmy his lowest moments. It felt like something that should be pushed down inside and never spoken of. ‘I’m fine, Jimmy,’ he imagined saying. ‘I just had the flu.’

And, really, the whole thing was connected to _Choose Your Own Path_ , and _Choose Your Own Path_ was too entwined with Jimmy’s departure for Thomas to feel able to say a word. God. He made terrible decisions.

Mostly, Thomas was trying not to think about it. He was enjoying himself on this trip; truly, he was. There were moments, mostly when he thought about Downton, or when he thought of the job opportunity he had passed up, that he’d feel a little panicky -- but then he’d look around at the endless sky stretching over the endless sea, and the briny air refreshed his lungs. He had chosen this. For better or for worse, he had chosen this.

With this in mind, Thomas felt light as he strolled back to their cabin after leaving Addie on the dancefloor. He hummed to himself as he passed the six portholes before their door, which Jimmy always counted with a wag of his finger at each one. He had been a little confused by Jimmy’s attitude at the dance, but he assumed that he was just sulking at Thomas’s refusal to leave with him. He did like to get his own way.

Thomas was surprised, therefore, to enter their room and see Jimmy curled up in the bottom bunk. A fond smile stole his lips. “How much did you drink this time?”

“None of your business,” Jimmy groused, though he was made incoherent by the pillow he had practically stuffed down his neck. He gripped it like it was his sole possession on earth.

“You can’t be hungover already. So what are you so grumpy about?”

Jimmy bounced up into an upright position, whacking his skull against the top bunk as he did so. “How can I be hungover when I’m still _drunk_ , you ninny,” he fumed, hurling the pillow at Thomas -- who neatly sidestepped the oncoming cushion.

“Then what’s your bloody problem?” Thomas asked, irked by the makeshift missile even though he had dodged it. The sentiment behind it confused him, the sight of Jimmy’s face scrunched up with anger.

“You’ve danced with the whole world at this point, I imagine?” said Jimmy by way of explanation. His tone bordered on sarcastic and outright nasty, sort of like how he used to speak to Alfred -- but this with a lot less amusement to soften the blow.

“No, only half a dozen girls on the deck --”

“Girls?” Jimmy was incredulous, offended as if he’d been lied to.

“Who else am I going to dance with?” It wasn’t like dancing with a man was an _option_ . Unless you counted prison or ridicule as an _option_.

“ _Girls_ , Thomas?” Jimmy repeated, growing more agitated. “But you -- you don’t -- ahh, bloody _girls_!”

“Yes, _girls_ ! What, you want me to dance with you? Jesus, Jimmy, stop acting like some…” The sentence he had been planning to say suddenly sounded all too suggestive. ‘Stop acting like some jealous husband _._ ’ He abandoned the phrase and stuck to: “Just stop it!”

Now they were rowing properly: Jimmy rolled off the bed in a flurry of wrinkled shirtsleeves and a pair of trousers that were threatening to slip for their loosened braces. He minded none of it and instead marched right up to Thomas, trying his best to meet him on an equal plane despite their difference in height. “You’re s’posed to be with _me_ ,” Jimmy panicked, jabbing a stiff finger into Thomas’s chest, though it wasn’t particularly menacing with the way his loose cuffs flopped around it as he did so.  

“I _am_ , you prat. I’m on this bloody boat with you, aren’t I? You can’t expect me to never speak to another soul!”

“Yeah, but speak to me _sometimes_ !” Jimmy protested, still discombobulated with gin; “Dance with me _sometimes_!”

At the reminder of how much Thomas couldn’t do with Jimmy, publicly or otherwise, all the fight went out of him, leaving him weary. Calmly, he said, “You _know_ I can’t do that. Much as I’d like to.”

“Can’t or _won’t_?” Jimmy minced. His hands were busy, agitated with where they ought to land. They touched down on Thomas’s lapels, only to rocket away in a burst of nerves. The cycle repeated with almost self-inflicted neurosis.

Drily, Thomas responded, “And what happened the last time people caught sight of my…” He wanted to say ‘feelings’, but thought that might be too much. “My… actions. With a man. Eh?” He felt oddly as if he were coaxing a child to admit something unpleasant.

“That weren’t ‘cause of anythin’ _you_ did,” Jimmy snapped, deciding the best thing to do was to just fold his arms and puff his chest out like he wasn’t losing the war. “And, right, maybe it weren’t your… _finest hour_ \-- but it still was all Alfred’s bloody fault, soundin’ gongs, ringin’ alarms, screamin’ blue bloody murder to God. I’d’ve left it alone if it were just on me. I wanted to. I --” By this point, Jimmy had deteriorated from drunken rage to drunken depression, like misery had poured over him from an upturned bucket over his head.

“I know,” Thomas agreed quietly. He had always known that. Jimmy stared up at him with wide eyes; they seemed to be making up, which baffled Thomas, especially since he still wasn’t clear why they had been arguing in the first place.

Then, almost quietly, came the confession Thomas had been waiting to hear, though it approached him softly and with toes that awkwardly stabbed at the carpet. “I’d’ve liked to dance with you,” Jimmy mumbled to the floor, bent over like a piece of origami, creased into something quite unlike himself. There was an empty space surrounding the words, like there was perhaps another interpretation that could be found if Jimmy had been folded into another shape.

“Thought you didn’t like people touchin’ you?” Thomas pointed out, his voice rough.

Despite a bit of unnatural stiffness, Jimmymumbled at something on the floor: “This’d be alright.” He was now very decisively addressing the ground, adding, “I trust you.”

A shiver of pleasure trembled through Thomas at the declaration. Trust was rare to him, and he knew his friend well enough to know that it was rare for Jimmy, too. And yet, even after how Thomas had acted when they had first met, Jimmy trusted him.

Thomas pursed his lips thoughtfully. There was no question of them dancing in the hall with everyone else, but maybe… “Why don’t we dance here?” he suggested. “You sing, I’ll hum.” He offered his hands for Jimmy to take as if for a waltz and waited.

Jimmy lifted his left hand like he meant to take Thomas’s right, and then held out his right like he meant to slide it around Thomas’s waist, which Thomas rolled away from with a hasty, “What’re you on about?” He patted his own shoulder indicatively, adding, “I’m taller. I should be leadin’.”

“Yeah, but I’m _better_ ,” Jimmy insisted, still aiming for Thomas’s hip, clothed as it was beneath his jacket and trousers. “I’ve been leadin’ all me life!”  

“Rubbish,” Thomas retorted. “I’ve been leadin’ all _my_ life too, and that’s longer than yours.”

“Start hummin’, Barrow,” Jimmy said pointedly as he grabbed at Thomas’s left hand, determined to keep the gentleman’s position.

“I’ll _hum_ if you put your hand on my bloody _shoulder_ and here, look -- I’ll do the same.”

Jimmy seemed to accept this solution, though he still had to take a few settling breaths to get used to the whole idea of it. He held himself squarely, like he was worried he had already been forward enough in his request.

“You choose the song,” Thomas said quietly, feeling his heart fluttering with the proximity already. “You know more of ‘em than me.”

“Then I’ll have to make sure you start learnin’,” said Jimmy, a little bit of his cheek starting to return. He breathed deeply, though it was hard to know if it was for the singing or just to centre himself. Then he gave Thomas a forward push into a simple three-step, keeping time with the gait of his voice, which was low and ruddy compared to most of the records Thomas had ever heard.  

 _“Lovers depend on moonlight for a love affair,_  
_Babies depend on mothers for their tender care._  
_Flowers depend on sunshine and the mornin’ dew._ _  
_ Each thing depends on somethin’, and I depend on you.”

Thomas barely dared to breathe, and Jimmy was through the whole first two lines before Thomas remembered that he was supposed to be humming along. His face felt hot, and he feared that he was blushing right to the tips of his ears. It was too much: Jimmy’s beautiful tenor ringing in his ears, his body so close, the words echoing in Thomas’s mind until he was drawing far too much meaning out of them.

Jimmy seemed more focused on their feet, even though he was technically leading their waltz. His steps were fluid, but he took special care to keep a gap between them, probably to keep from stumbling into what he probably envisioned as an awkward situation. The lyrics that flitted through his lips as naturally as breath almost seemed to calm him in this practice.

 _“I can save money, or spend it,_  
_Go right on livin’, or end it._ _  
_ _You’re to blame, ba -- “_ he coughed on a twisted note “ -- f-for what I do.”

“Y’alright?” Thomas checked, referring to the phrase Jimmy had choked on.

“You’re not hummin’,” was Jimmy’s quick retort, though the tease in his delivery was a relief to Thomas.

“Can’t hum while I’m talkin’,” Thomas pointed out, impressed at his own ability to sound calm.

“Then less talkin’, more dancin’,” said Jimmy, who squeezed Thomas’s hand tighter, which had been gingerly draped over the width of Jimmy’s palm with careful precision. Thomas couldn’t be sure because they were still turning round on the same square of carpet, but Jimmy might have inched a slight bit closer to him after saying so.

_“I know that I can be beggar, I can be king.”_

The phrase sparked some recognition in Thomas’s mind, and he realised that he knew the words to come -- as Jimmy sang on, he tentatively joined in, though he kept his voice low out of embarrassment his contribution would only ruin Jimmy’s lovely rendition.

 _“I can be almost any old thing:_ _  
_ _It all depends on you!”_

“And he sings, too?” Jimmy wondered, his lips crushed to the side of his face in amusement. “Can you fly? Walk on water?”

“Ah -- no,” Thomas replied, flustered at the compliment he had not been expecting. If this kept up, he’d forget himself and find his hands sliding under Jimmy’s dishevelled clothing, adventuring to places they ought not go. He cleared his throat and transitioned as smoothly as he could: “But I can get information out of pretty girls.”

Jimmy cocked his chin with narrowed eyes, an unneeded question resting on his tongue.

Thomas lost his patience with Jimmy’s temperament. “Jimmy, for God’s sake, you know me. You _know_ it means nothing that I spoke to Addie.”

“It ain’t about bloody _Addie_ ,” Jimmy said with a lilt that followed the music, though it only made his comment sound condescending.

“Then what _is_ it about?” Thomas demanded, then gasped as Jimmy took an aggressively large step forward, momentarily knocking their bodies together before Thomas could rebalance himself. He forgot, sometimes, that Jimmy was a solid human being and not some ghost of perfection whom Thomas could never touch, and the sensation of any kind of contact with him came as a shock every damn time.

Jimmy fretted, wiggling a little bit in the circle of Thomas’s arms. Their feet had slowed, but they were still locked in a dancer’s embrace. Then, suddenly -- _explosively_ \-- Jimmy pounded the hand that had been perched so happily upon Thomas’s shoulder into the taller man’s chest. “It’s about _you_ , alright?” he heaved with a stormy rumble; “It’s bloody, goddamn _you --_ always so clever and smart and it -- it leaves me a fool, alright? I’m shit next to you.”

“No,” Thomas managed to say, squashing his hopeless heart for daring to believe that there might be some level of truth in Jimmy’s words -- that Jimmy might _admire_ him. Until then, Thomas had had three reasons that he believed made Jimmy his friend: Thomas could be witty, he easily acquiesced to most of Jimmy’s needs, and he never ran out of cigarettes. He had perhaps believed there was more to it once -- and not just when he had been hoping for requited love. After a while, Thomas had thought that Jimmy truly did enjoy his company. But their physical estrangement had made him doubt himself even on that. “It’s the other way around.”

Jimmy didn’t have the heart to play this game and it showed in the way he practically deflated in Thomas’s arms, which were the only reason he didn’t sink all the way to the floor. He tilted forward, catching his forehead against the knob of Thomas’s shoulder and sighed at their feet, which were clustered together with their proximity.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas apologised at once, thinking that he had gone too far. He knew Jimmy tried to forget that Thomas loved him, and that Thomas was continually making it hard for him by letting his words run away with themselves. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s just…” Jimmy replaced his hand on Thomas’s shoulder, and they began to rock from side to side, weight lifting from one foot to the other without any real semblance of step. “You’re mi -- my friend, and I get really scared that someone’ll take you away again. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. You’re my only friend, really -- maybe that’s why it’s -- it’s different?”

“Different?” Thomas echoed.

“Yeah, y’know….” Jimmy was vague, his idle gesticulations standing in for words he couldn’t quite arrange properly. His twisting hand eventually settled down on Thomas’s shoulder again, let down a gentler breeze; he summarised his thought briefly, “Y’know like -- there’s friends, and then there’s _friends_ \-- and then there’s, y’know… you.”

Thomas forced a laugh, feeling bashful and silly. “I hope that’s a good thing,” he said, aiming for lightness in his tone. He didn’t feel able to cope with the apparent sincerity in Jimmy’s expression.

“It’s a good thing for me,” mumbled Jimmy, still having the bulk of the conversation with their feet. Thomas still had his smart brogues on, but Jimmy was in hose and garters, brown and white checkers that seemed drab in comparison to topstitched patent leather. “It made me so nervous to think you’d get swung away with just one good waltz. So I’m sorry for... jumpin’ the gun and that.”

“Maybe now you’ve calmed down, you’d like to know what we talked about,” Thomas teased, to hide how touched he was by Jimmy’s words.

“Sounded like the proposal of the century,” Jimmy quipped, sounding less annoyed about what he’d heard than before.

Smirking, Thomas anticipated a little bit of showing off. “Seemed like a good way of seeing how hung up she is on jewellery. And don’t worry, I’m far too sneaky to commit myself -- I’m not _actually_ engaged.”

“Better not be,” Jimmy sniffed in lieu of being too personal with his answer. He shook his head, reorienting himself with another little snippet of song, which he mumbled under his breath as he livened their step back up to a proper waltz. “And how much does little Addie like shiny treasures?”

“She says not at all. Proper romantic, by all accounts.” Thomas had rather liked her, actually. Her youthful energy made her very refreshing after the stagnancy of life at Downton; she was a woman who believed that anything was possible for her. For servants, it wasn’t so easy. By contrast, O’Brien -- the woman Thomas had known best at Downton -- had been more the sort to believe that anything _should_ be possible for her, and to spend her life bitter at her limitations.

“You sure she weren’t just pullin’ your leg, waxin’ you up with stuff she thought you’d like?” Jimmy interjected with another prickle of suspicion in his voice. “You stink a little _romantic_ now and again -- offensive as I’m sure that is for you to hear. Maybe she just fancies you.”

Thomas got the impression there was a secret question that was not being asked so directly, but he let it slide. “Difficult to tell, really,” he acknowledged. “I think she had… _some_ kind of interest. She seemed genuine, though.”

“I s’pose the Prince of Lies could tell,” Jimmy joked as they spun around the room and accidentally rode up against the bunk. They both laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation at last. “Did you break her wee, innocent heart, Mr. Barrow?”

“Hardly,” Thomas said drily, wondering two things: first, when Jimmy was going to move them away from the bunks, and second, exactly when Thomas had decided to follow his lead so blindly. He hummed another snatch of _It All Depends On You_ , shifting to the gentleman’s hold and managing to surprise Jimmy into spinning under his arm.

“Dirty bastard,” Jimmy snorted, his mirth belying the crass choice in words. He squirmed a bit, though he didn’t make a particularly concerted effort to win the lead back, and Thomas chuckled as he swung him back into a standard hold. Jimmy rewarded him with the accompaniment of his harmonising as they fumbled through the tiny cabin once more, their waltz growing sloppier with each step.

 _“Isn’t it sweet to know, mmm,_ Thomas, _you can help me on?”_

He sang it with a grin, and loud enough for the pair of them to laugh at together. Jimmy skidded on his socks, falling awkwardly over Thomas, any traces of his former unhappiness blown away on a departing gale. Thomas’s heart felt as though it was too big for his chest, and although his hair was falling into his eyes, he had no great wish to sweep it back into place. Tonight was the best he had felt in a long time; dancing with people who didn’t know him or his history, and the relief of making up with Jimmy made him giddy. And, of course, _dancing_ with Jimmy, their bodies seeming to know each other even though this was probably the most physical they had ever been with each other, and their voices melding together as the night crept into their room.

 _“Wouldn’t it make you proud, de --_ Thomas, _if I made a name?_ _  
_ _But if I failed to win, dear, wouldn’t you want all the blame!”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Jimmy is singing is 'It All Depends On You', famously sung by Ruth Etting around 1927, The chapter title is another famous Gershwin composition from around the same time. 
> 
> Hope you guys are still enjoying the story -- especially now that Jimmy's REAL purposes seem to be coming out into focus ;D


	8. The Cherry On Top

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and Jimmy explore the food situation on the upper class decks.

 

It had been almost four days since the necklace had been stolen from Jimmy’s drawer, and two and a half since he and Thomas had danced around clearing Addie off their suspect list. But it was still a long period of time for Jimmy to agonise over what had happened and what their next move ought to be. He felt like he was running out of ways to hold Lady A off with each passing second, and, in his own mind, it eroded his control over the situation, which made him blisteringly nervous. It was bad enough on a personal scale, but the thoughts of how far he’d dug himself into this one continued to dominate the longer they went without any progress. The ship was transforming from a vessel of freedom into a floating prison that would bear him in chains to a life behind bars if anything else went awry. Of all the ways he’d imagined he might end up in jail, this had not been one of them. Still, he balked to think of the alternatives, especially as they neared their first port of call in Spain, and hoped he was at least still the very picture of calm despite the sea of trouble roiling in his skull.

“Let’s find somethin’ to snack on,” Jimmy told Thomas one morning as they wandered the decks, plotting.

“We just had breakfast twenty minutes ago,” Thomas reminded Jimmy as he puffed at a cigarette, his own thoughts a passing cloud of vapour around his head. “You ate enough for the pair of us.”

“Well, I’m peckish again,” grumbled Jimmy as he nervously swung his gaze through their surroundings. His mood had filled him with the need to distract himself, and it was too early to find a drink; he needed something to do.

“You’re always peckish these days,” Thomas observed, watching the sea.

Following Thomas’s stare out to the ocean, Jimmy frowned, unsure that he wanted to admit that Thomas was completely right. A piece of his memory flitted back to his early days at Downton, when one of the upstairs Ladies had died in childbirth and all the family had wanted to do was grieve and eat. It bothered him that it was the best comparison he could come up with. He coughed, and then asked Thomas for a drag on his cigarette.

“Get your own,” Thomas said peevishly, for once. “They’re just the same.”

“They’re not,” Jimmy groused. Then, because he was feeling morose, he mumbled to himself, “Yours taste better.”

“I’ll get you some for Christmas,” Thomas said coolly, and exhaled a lungful of smoke in his direction. “These are mine.”

“Well, it’s a ciggy or food, take your pick,” Jimmy huffed, wringing his hands. He flicked away from Thomas and came to a rest, leaning heavily against a nearby lifeboat, which was berthed just where he had stopped. Arching against its canvas-wrapped hull, Jimmy stared upwards, following the anatomy of the ship towards a roped off stairway that reached up towards the first-class decks. He felt like he was at the bottom of a hole.

When his gaze returned furtively to Thomas, his friend was still standing at the edge of the deck. As Jimmy watched, he tossed the end of his cigarette overboard. Thomas cut a striking figure with his black coat and hair against the merging greys of the sea and the sky. The real image of him reflected the way he had always stood out to Jimmy, like the rest of the world was in a colourless fog where only Thomas was rendered in full focus.

From the first-class decks above, the laughter of a woman caught Jimmy’s attention. He glanced up in time to catch sight of a lacy handkerchief as the sea snatched it from her gloved hand and ferried it away on a salty breeze. Jimmy watched it billow and twirl overhead, following it as it whirled out of reach and wondering if Thomas had seen it, too. He dragged his focus back to where the floating handkerchief had escaped from, and then wondered if there was anything worth exploring up there. Or if, at any rate, there might be a variation in things to chew on in place of his mired thinking.

Pushing off the lifeboat, he started to wander towards the roped-off stairs, glancing this way and that to make sure no one would take any notice of him being where he wasn’t supposed to. It was only as he peeked back over his shoulder that he realised that Thomas was still loitering over the side rail, hands in his pockets and his shoulders moving with the depth of his breathing. The flush of him impressed him more brightly against the monotone air around him.

Jimmy took a few surreptitious paces back in the direction he’d come, his voice a low whine: “Thomas, I’m _hungry_.”  

Turning, Thomas showed Jimmy a small smile. He looked as though the sea air had settled him a little. “Alright, greedy.” He wandered over slowly. “Let’s go find you something to eat.”

Jimmy was relieved to see that the warmth he was so used to seeing in Thomas’s eyes had returned. He felt bolstered that at least Thomas was still there, and it gave him the bravery to re-approach the first-class steps with confidence. This time, he didn’t even bother checking to see if the coast was clear as he ducked under the swinging chain that delineated the two areas, and jogged up the steps two at a time. The _tock-tock_ of Thomas’s shoes on the metal stairs behind him was steady, like a heartbeat.

Reaching the top, Jimmy slid into the new space with a casual ease, trusting Thomas to follow suit. There wasn’t too much of an immediate difference between the upper class area and theirs, save for the reclining deck chairs that looked out to sea in pairs, unobscured by the wall of lifeboats below. Jimmy rubbed his hands with a note of excitement, a rush like the world had just unfurled a red carpet upon which he could shift his previously glum disposition.

“Let’s see what the crack is,” he said to Thomas as he arbitrarily headed aft. “Maybe they’ve got better biscuits up here, too. Or booze before noon.”

Jimmy trailed after a scent only he could perceive as Thomas followed on behind. In the middle of the day, their less-than-formal attire didn’t stand out too much amid casual linens and flannel. As they came across an area arranged like an outdoor patio, Jimmy felt no concerns as he took a seat at one of the small tables. A waiter dressed in a black bowtie appeared almost instantly at their side, asking to be of service. Jimmy found the experience somewhat surreal considering their own career histories.

“My two-year-old friend here would like some biscuits, and some ice cream and pop,” Thomas said to the waiter, the corners of his lips curling up as he looked at Jimmy.

“And a lolly,” Jimmy added, meeting Thomas with a challenging smirk of his own. “Cherry.”

With a “Very good, sir,” the waiter vanished almost as seamlessly as he’d appeared, leaving Jimmy to recline more comfortably in his seat, an arm flung haphazardly over the back as he looked around. The only other person in the little patio cafe was a young man that reminded Jimmy of someone who might have come knocking after Lady Mary once upon a time. A small child was hoop trundling up and down the width of the deck, his sailor collar flapping behind him as he ran. Jimmy let himself be distracted by the boy and his play, finding a sort of odd interest in how universal such a game was. He recalled many childhood afternoons wasted with a stick and a tyre, despite much more humble beginnings.

“That boy there reminds me of Master George,” Thomas said; Jimmy turned to realise that Thomas’s attention was on the same child. His fingers were tapping contentedly on the table.

“Sorry, who?” Jimmy wondered absently, only vaguely aware of what Thomas was saying.

“Master George,” Thomas repeated. “Lady Mary’s son.”

“Oh, right,” Jimmy hummed as a dim recollection of the youngest Crawley popped into focus. “For whatever reason,” Jimmy commented, “I thought you were talkin’ about some other friend of yours, or... or somethin’.” His sentence died on his lips, growing softer as he spoke, as if he’d changed his mind about voicing the thought halfway through. In front of him, the boy clumsily stumbled against a chair, tripping into a pile of limbs on top of the wheel, which had collapsed to the ground.

Just as the boy was standing up to start a new round in his game, dusting his scraped knees as if it would clear away the bruises, the waiter returned to their table. Jimmy’s eyes grew wide with wonder as the waiter artfully distributed a plate of chocolate-covered biscuits and a tall ice cream float in front of him. The desserts were followed by the placement of a folded napkin, upon which the waiter laid a long spoon and a ruby red lollipop with the professional indifference of someone who was used to the ridiculous whims of the _nouveau riche._ Jimmy peered at Thomas around the elegant cherry stem that curled up from the sinking depths of cream like a flag of surrender: Thomas’s face was buckled by a laugh he was doing his very best to keep stifled.

“I bet you think you’re _hilarious_ ,” Jimmy sniffed, even as he rescued the cherry from its sugary doom and plucked it off its stem with his teeth.

“I rather do,” Thomas quipped. Something unnamed flitted through his grey irises as he watched Jimmy chew.

“Great,” said Jimmy as he took up his spoon and began to dig into his fizzy treat; “Because the funny man’s buyin’.” He let Thomas sit with that brilliant punchline while he happily slurped at the straw that poked through the vanilla globule melting into his pop. Though he could have afforded it on his own, it pleased him to think that it was a kind of gift.

The pleasant moment was burst when the prepubescent cries of a child rang out. Both Jimmy and Thomas snapped their attention in the direction of the sob, where the boy in the sailor suit was back on the ground, landed on his rear in the center of his hoop as he sniffled up at a looming adult.

“Say, ain’t that the same piece of shit valet we ran into, y’know, _that_ night?” Jimmy wondered, unable to keep from staring. He stuck his spoon headfirst into his float like a spear of vengeance in the dirt.

Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Just because you weren’t looking where you were going, doesn’t make him a terrible person.”

“Would you say the same if it were little _George_ on his arse?” Jimmy asked with a grimace.

“I’d never let him,” Thomas said, then looked embarrassed. He cleared his throat.

Jimmy stared, quite unsure of what to make of the comment. He hadn’t thought Thomas would have been so bothered about the son of an aristocrat, but was afraid to delve for any elaboration on the topic. Still, there had been the incident with Sybbie Branson and her abusive nanny, which would have marched on in insidious darkness if it hadn’t been for Thomas. At the time, Jimmy had taken the story as something Thomas had boasted as if winning points with the family was a sport, but now he wondered if perhaps Thomas just had a soft spot for children. Upon consideration, Jimmy decided it might not be so surprising if it was true.  

“It’s just...” Thomas started to say, clearly distracted by the upset boy, who was still crying even as the valet stalked around him. “Of all the people in that house, it were only Master George and Miss Sybbie who didn’t…” He trailed off again, somehow troubled by the open discussion of the Crawley children. His gaze became distant, like he’d become lost in a cloud that floated somewhere far away; “They don’t see what the others see, I s’pose,” Thomas finished simply, as he ran a fingernail around the cuff of one sleeve with habitual neurosis. Jimmy got the impression there was a lot more to it than just that.

Before Jimmy could make any reply, Thomas had got to his feet, his eyes still fixed on the crying child. He crossed over to them and knelt down in front of the boy, mindless of the lingering valet. Jimmy watched with curiosity as Thomas put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. He was just close enough for Thomas’s words to drift over. “Hey, it’s alright,” he was saying gently. “Did you hurt yourself?”

The boy nodded, sniffling, but he seemed to have forgotten to wail.

“Let’s see what we can do about that,” Thomas went on. He hoisted the boy up with two hands under his armpits, letting him bounce into the air; the child kicked his feet before he was set carefully back on the floor. The two of them were about on the same level now, and from Jimmy’s less-than-ideal vantage point, it looked as though a smile was tugging at the corners of the younger’s mouth. “Well, look at how tall you are!” Thomas exclaimed, which Jimmy self-consciously thought was an absolutely ludicrous thing to draw attention to.

“What’s your name, then?” Thomas asked.

“Daniel,” the boy whispered.

“It’s nice to meet you, Daniel,” Thomas said, offering his hand formally. “I’m Thomas.”

Daniel grinned and shook Thomas’s hand happily.

If any of Jimmy’s questions about Thomas and George Crawley were starting to answer themselves, the revelation was overshadowed by the valet, who kept shooting Jimmy the most exasperated glances. Jimmy couldn’t tell if the looks were meant for him, or if they were some sort of silent commentary about Thomas’s interactions with the boy. Either way, he didn’t like it, and hoped that the curl in his lip was enough of a clue to the valet that he was not on the same side in the matter.  

Thomas picked up the hoop and put it into Daniel’s hands. “The trick is to keep up the momentum,” he said. “That means how fast it’s going. If it goes too slowly it gets all wobbly and falls over, just like someone I used to work with.”

Jimmy found his lips twisting into the same sort of shape that followed a particularly witty comment about one of their coworkers at the Abbey, a nostalgia that warmed him immensely. Such a connection only strengthened when he caught the valet trying to give him another taste of annoyance, and Jimmy couldn’t help but call out, “You need a hoop rollin’ lesson too? Bugger off!” He didn’t care that his point was probably muted by the way he was gesturing with his ice-cream sticky spoon.

With a disapproving glance, Thomas said, “Don’t swear in front of Daniel.”

Jimmy blinked at Thomas with a crease denting his brow. “The fuck did _I_ say?” he shrugged.

Thomas shook his head at him, but he was fighting a smile.

Daniel tugged at Thomas’s lapel, wondering, “Is that your friend?” He pointed at Jimmy, whose cheeks were puffed around a mouthful of biscuits.

“That’s my very silly friend,” Thomas told him.

“What’s his name?” Daniel demanded to know.

Glancing wickedly at Jimmy, Thomas replied, “James.”

Jimmy sputtered a flurry of crumbs, barely catching the unpleasant display behind the back of one hand. He wiped his mouth on his knuckles, which he then rubbed into the seam of his trousers. He couldn’t say he particularly cared for children, but he couldn’t deny how nice it was to see Thomas transform into this gentle creature in the presence of one. He decided it was worth the bend in his own character, and he played along. “Listen, Daniel,” he said, gesturing for the boy to come closer with a wagging finger. “Come make a deal with me.”

Daniel looked to Thomas, as if to ask permission. Thomas tossed his head in Jimmy’s direction, saying, “Go on, lad.”

When Daniel drew near enough, Jimmy presented him with the red lolly. “You can call me James, and I’ll let you have this,” he said, which seemed to please Daniel until he was tempted with another option: “ _Or_ ,” Jimmy went on, pushing his float towards the edge of the table, “You can call me Jimmy, and trade up.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jimmy,” Daniel said gleefully, bouncing on his heels as Jimmy plucked up the glass and handed it to the boy. He sealed the exchange by jabbing his spoon into what remained of the ice cream on top, and gave the valet a triumphant sneer over the top of Daniel’s head.

Thomas returned to his seat, watching with a smile as Daniel clutched the glass and ran over to the only other man who had been sitting nearby. He skidded to a halt as he came close and lifted the glass, apparently showing off his spoils.

Unwrapping the lolly, Jimmy slid it between his lips and commented drolly, “I always knew you were soft, you mardy git.”

His remark was rewarded with the sight of Thomas’s cheeks turning an intensely vibrant shade of red, which Jimmy also took as a victory.

“Couldn’t leave ‘im cryin’, could I?” Thomas murmured to the table.

“Sure,” said Jimmy, the hard candy clicking against his teeth as he spoke. “If you say so.”  

A disapproving voice broke in on their conversation. “I remember you two now.” It was the valet. “You were down in second class, that first night. You’re not supposed to be up here.”

Suddenly tense, Jimmy was quick to retort: “Then what’s your excuse?” The lolly bulged in one cheek, its stick pressed into the corner of Jimmy’s mouth like a toothpick.

“I am tending to Lord Bigsby and supervising Master Daniel while the nanny is seeing to the washing,” the valet said crisply. “I think you should leave now, or I shall be forced to alert one of the crew.”

“And who will be supervising Master Daniel while you see to _that_?” Jimmy rejoined sarcastically. He shot a glance at the boy in question, who was too busy smothering himself in pop and ice cream to pay the adults any mind.

“I’m sure his father can manage for long enough to get you two thrown out,” the valet hissed.

“That won’t be necessary,” Thomas interjected. “We’ve finished here, anyway. Come on, Jimmy.” Saying this last, he stood, tilting his head at Jimmy expectantly before turning to leave.

Jimmy hurried to catch up with Thomas, who was walking very efficiently back the way they’d first come. “What gives?” he muttered under his breath. “I could’ve handled that on me owns. That bloke was a dumb bruiser.”

“You’d have gone at him all day if I let you,” Thomas informed Jimmy -- a fact they both knew to be true.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Jimmy said, sucking loudly on his lolly as he waited for Thomas to explain what would have been the problem with that.

Thomas’s fingers flexed as he looked at Jimmy fondly. “We’ve got better things to do. Like finding that necklace. And I don’t think talking to that valet is going to get us there.”

“You kiddin’?” Jimmy drawled with a bit of slack jaw; “That guy rubs me the wrong way, and he were right in our space on the night in question. _I_ think we just blew a good chance to nail him back there.”

“He’s just doin’ his job, Jimmy,” Thomas tried to reason as they descended the narrow stairs back to the second-class decks, one after the other. “That doesn’t make him a thief.”

“It’s that softness comin’ out again,” Jimmy warned, not quite ready to let go of his suspicion. “Thinkin’ like that ain’t goin’ to help us catch flies, Thomas. It’s just like how you think sleazy Cecil isn’t trouble neither.”

“It’s not that I’m saying Cecil’s definitely innocent,” Thomas explained as they drew alongside one another again. “But we’ve no real reason to suppose that he’s not. He was across the table from you that night.”

The sharp inhalation Jimmy made nearly had him gagging on his lolly. “Yeah, and he had his hands practically in me drawers under the tablecloth,” Jimmy finally spilled around the choking piece of candy as he shifted it from one side of his mouth to the other. He had been so determined to prove his point that the momentary lapse of oxygen had loosened his tongue.   

“He what?” Thomas asked, in a tone that suggested he had heard perfectly well.

There was no going back now. Jimmy thumbed the lolly stick in distraction and picked up his pace so that he could walk ahead of Thomas. “Hand up me thigh, graspin’ for who knows what,” Jimmy said tightly, humiliated by the confession.

“But he was chattin’ up bloody Addie!” Thomas cried in consternation.

“I’m sure it’s all part of the _illusion_ ,” Jimmy retorted before he had a chance to think about how he sounded to Thomas. The halt in footfalls behind Jimmy announced exactly how sharply he’d twisted the knife before he had even realised that he’d stuck it in.

“And what illusion’s that?” Thomas asked in a hollow voice.

Jimmy also came to a stop, but he was ashamed to look Thomas in the eye, terrified of the expression that likely went with the hitch in his tone. “Y’know what I mean,” Jimmy mumbled, though he wasn’t sure he could have really elaborated on it himself. Whether that was because he was embarrassed or just worried about his friend was hard to say.

“I’m not sure I do,” Thomas replied, without inflection. “But if you say he’s had opportunity, we can check him out.”

The lolly stick hung loosely over Jimmy’s bottom lip as it struck him how much trust Thomas had in him. Despite his clownish manoeuvring around the subject of Cecil, Thomas was still willing to overlook that for the sake of Jimmy’s own peace of mind. Carefully, he girded himself and peeked back at Thomas, who was watching him with his own breed of hesitance. “I really don’t deserve you,” Jimmy said by way of apology.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” answered Thomas with a quiet smile.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Link apologizes for the later-than-usual update; she took a killer nap and spaced out for most of the afternoon and didn't mean to forget. Anyway, she hopes that you're still enjoying the story and that you had fun with this chapter! Because Link and Laramie had lots of fun writing it! Also, they also now know everything about the history of soda pop and ice cream floats, and will take your questions in the back. 
> 
> Link is also sniggering that you can decide which of these two dorks is -- ahhhh -- the cherry on top ;D


	9. As Time Goes By

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fundamental things apply....

 

At first, Thomas had thought Cecil harmless enough, though not someone he would have chosen to spend time with. After Jimmy’s revelation, his reluctance to be in Cecil’s company increased. There was a streak of irrational jealousy which poisoned Thomas’s thoughts against him now. He worried about Cecil’s intentions towards Jimmy, but more than that -- he was afraid of Cecil trying something with Jimmy, and then having to witness Jimmy recoil. He had thought that Jimmy at least tolerated that side of Thomas, even accepted it, but Jimmy’s reaction to Cecil made him fear that Jimmy was disgusted by the idea after all. He didn’t want to see Jimmy’s face twisted with anger, as it had been after Thomas had kissed him. He didn’t think he could stand it.

And so it was with some trepidation that they joined Cecil when they saw him the next day on deck. It was inconvenient that Lady Anstruther was with them, but they had spent hours wandering the ship hoping to run into him and they were rapidly approaching the voyage’s first stop in Spain; they could not afford to waste the opportunity. Lady A’s presence complicated the situation, but they could hardly have come out and asked Cecil straight anyway, so hopefully they would be able to subtly interrogate him without her noticing.

Lady Anstruther, meanwhile, seemed perfectly content to be stuck in their company, though Thomas had a creeping suspicion that she was only interested in keeping tabs on Jimmy’s whereabouts. He was hesitant to mention this directly to Jimmy, concerned that it might only stress him out, but he made a note to make sure that Lady A didn’t go completely unchecked. She was slippery -- even Thomas had to concede that -- and he couldn’t help but worry about what unspoken machinations she might have concocted for Jimmy on her own. He hadn’t been so carried off that he hadn’t noticed the way the dowager sometimes eyed Jimmy: it made his blood boil when he considered why. 

Jimmy, meanwhile, seemed to be stuck on problems of his own, though Thomas couldn’t tell if it was the usual rumination, or if the prospect of Cecil in particular that was weighing on him. Which only brought Thomas right back around to where he’d started as he tried to unravel the unending question of where he stood with Jimmy. Funny how so much could change while still remaining exactly the same. 

“You boys seem gloomy today,” Lady Anstruther commented with almost offensive cheerfulness. It was a sugary tone Thomas had come to associate with the dowager’s particular breed of sarcasm. 

“Don’t know what gives you that impression,” Thomas returned crisply. “Jimmy and I are just fine.”

Lady Anstruther raised her eyebrows at him. “‘Jimmy and I’, is it? I’m sure the boy can speak for himself.”

“Oh,  _ are  _ you?” Jimmy grumbled. “Makes a change.” He quickly turned his attention to Cecil, since they had just drawn alongside him near the stern of the ship. Cecil looked up from the book he had been reading as Jimmy greeted him: “Mornin’.”

“Golly, is it morning already?” Cecil blinked at Jimmy as if his greeting was wholly unexpected. He glanced around as if he’d only just noticed that he was standing outside in the sunlight, and then adjusted his glasses like perhaps they had been showing him the wrong picture. “I’ve been so engrossed in my studies, I barely noticed the time,” Cecil explained as he removed his spectacles to polish the lenses against his sleeve. “Been up since before sunrise, me.” 

“The wonders of the academic mind,” Thomas said dryly, not bothering to make any imitation of sincerity.

“Ah,” Cecil alerted himself to Thomas’s presence as he replaced his glasses upon his nose. He snapped his book closed and tucked it under arm, saying, “But surely one as discerning in taste as you might agree.” He seemed to be inspecting Thomas’s person for something in particular.

Thomas prickled under his penetrating eye, wondering if his interest was wavering from Jimmy onto himself. He still doubted his instincts, but this had to be some kind of sign, didn’t it? He tried to shake it out of mind, unhappy to consider what it meant about Jimmy if it was. 

“Hey,” interrupted Jimmy with a prickle of irritation in his voice; “Didn’t you want to ask Cecil a  _ question _ , Thomas?” 

Thomas gave Jimmy a perplexed look, a little taken aback by his tone. 

“About your  _ watch _ ,” Jimmy emphasised with a very slight widening of his eyes. He seemed particularly agitated. 

“Ah, of course,” Thomas agreed, realising what he was getting at. “I’ve been considering selling my pocket watch; I wondered if you might take a look at it and estimate its value.”

Their assumption that Cecil had an uncanny interest in Thomas’s watch had been correct. Cecil nearly fumbled his book with excitement at the prospect. As Thomas pulled out his pocket watch and presented it to Cecil still chained to his waistcoat, Cecil mopped his brow with a handkerchief he’d produced out of his jacket, his mannerisms those of someone who’d been offered something he had salacious desire for. 

Thomas wrinkled his nose as he watched Cecil grip the watch with clammy hands and bring it close to his bespectacled eyes.

“Yes, yes…” he mumbled to himself distractedly, his nose practically brushing the casing with the level of attention he was giving it. “I’ll have to open the back, of course,” he added, with a piercing glance at Thomas.

Thomas opened his mouth to tell him that he’d better not dare when he spotted Jimmy, who raised his eyebrows. He subsided reluctantly. “Certainly.”

Cecil rummaged through several of his pockets before emerging with a miniature jeweller’s kit. It was similar to one that Thomas had himself, but looked more expensive. Extracting a tiny screwdriver, Cecil went to work on the back, removing the casing with brisk efficiency. It was clearly something that he was well-practised at, though watching him do so made Thomas feel as if Cecil might as well have taken the screwdriver to dismantle his own person instead.

“Oh, marvellous, marvellous,” he murmured. He was mesmerised by the gentle ticking of the watch’s movement in his hands, and stared at it with pleasure as he wondered aloud, “Where did you get such a fine piece? It looked to be such an antique at first glance, but someone’s turned this into quite a complexly jewelled movement, don’t you see?” He presented Thomas with the mechanism, which Thomas had spent a significant amount of time contemplating in the past; “There must be at least twenty diamonds in here that I can count!” 

“Fuckin’ brill,” Jimmy interjected again, frowning at the watch without any sort of significance. “What’s the bugger worth?” 

“Well,” Cecil cleared his throat and put on a more professional air, his inner hobbyist temporarily stashed away as he began to re-screw the back onto the watch. “It would perhaps depend on who the manufacturer is -- who’s done the modifications and such.” He turned back to Thomas, practically salivating to know.

“My father modified it,” Thomas said shortly, not wishing to go into detail about the hours on end his dad had spent poring over it, tinkering late into to the night while his mother begged him to go to bed before he ruined his eyes. For once in his life, Thomas had felt like a prince when his father had presented it to him for his twelfth birthday. It was one of the very few happy memories Thomas had that was connected to his father. He might have told Jimmy, if Jimmy had ever asked, but there was no chance that he was going to share such a private moment with the others.

Jimmy looked like he was about to say something else about the watch’s monetary value, but instead, Thomas found himself staring at a much more softened expression in the blond’s face. Jimmy spoke to Cecil, but he kept flicking his glance back at Thomas as he said decisively, “Which is why it’s not for sale. We just wanted to have an idea, that’s all.” He quickly covered up any momentarily exposed sentimentality by adding, “We’ve got a few other antiques if you’re interested though. How d’ya feel about investing in some jewellery?” 

“I don’t buy jewellery,” Cecil said dismissively as Thomas pried his watch out of Cecil’s grip. “Watches, clocks, any other clockwork and, very occasionally, a compass, but nothing else.”

“You sure?” Jimmy goaded, his attention shifting to Lady A with unhindered disdain; “Because we’ve got a pretty fine piece from the Orient. Jade and pearls and that. Very  _ pretty _ .” 

“And also  _ not for sale _ ,” Lady A said, ostensibly lightly but with a firmness underlying her tone.

Jimmy pretended like he was deaf to the exclusive sound of her voice, and goaded Cecil further: “A little lady might like it, y’know. You got a little  _ lady  _ to impress _ ,  _ Cecil?” He pushed the topic almost desperately, which seemed to make Cecil rather uncomfortable. 

“None of your business if I do!” Cecil sniffed, suddenly very defensive. With a sick ray of hope, Thomas thought Cecil sounded almost as though he perceived Jimmy as some sort of competition. “And not all ladies are so -- so  _ superficial _ !” 

“Trust me, Cecil,” Jimmy said as he gave Lady A a very significant stare; “They most certainly  _ are _ .” 

Lady Anstruther smiled. “If we are, it’s only because we like knowing our gentleman  _ appreciates _ us just as much as he should,” she retorted.

“Well, not  _ my  _ lady,” Cecil tried to insert, albeit meekly. Thomas seemed to be the only person who heard him -- or who cared. The announcement practically lifted Thomas off the ground with blessed relief.

Then a particular notion sparked within Thomas: “Your lady wouldn’t happen to be Miss Cortina, would it?” he asked, unable to suppress the quirk in his lips as Cecil ignited into a very passionate shade of red. 

“Well, she’s not  _ quite  _ my lady,” Cecil fidgeted awkwardly, his handkerchief back in hand and wiping at his brow. “But I’d like to hope that even a bloke like me could have a chance with her. She’s much kinder than you’d think, you know -- when she’s on her own and she’s not on social parade.” Cecil tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket so that he could steeple his fingers nervously together. His feet were pigeon-toed in his fit of self-imposed embarrassment. 

“Have you ever considered that she’s ashamed of you?” Lady Anstruther put in very seriously.

“Have you considered she might be sincere?” Thomas countered smoothly. 

“Have to see it to believe it,” Jimmy muttered under his breath. 

“Well, she likes talking to me,” Cecil tried to say, unsure if he was being heard. “We walked round the whole ship after dinner that first night. And she’d only just met me.” He fretted with a sudden concern: “Oh, I do hope I wasn’t boring her to death.” 

“I’m sure she was riveted,” Thomas said flatly, then had a thought. “How long exactly did you bore -- ah -- talk to her for?”

Cecil fidgeted again. “Not more than an hour, I’m sure.”

Looking at Jimmy, Thomas raised an eyebrow. To the untrained eye, he would look as though he was mocking Cecil; but he knew Jimmy would understand that Cecil had just given himself -- and Addie -- what Poirot always called an  _ alibi. _

“Well, we’ll be sure to give her our kindest regards if we happen upon her,” Jimmy deadpanned, reading the flicker in Thomas’s features with natural ease. Clearly satisfied that they had all they needed from Cecil, Jimmy rubbed his hands together, deciding for the group: “Now, I think it’s about time we settled down for the full English. I’m starvin’.” 

The three of them trailed down to the dining hall together. Cecil had looked for a moment as though he might try to join them, but Thomas had made it as obvious as possible without outright stating it that he was not invited. Jimmy ordered a huge meal, picked at it, and then kept stealing Thomas’s mushrooms.

Lady Anstruther fixed him with a stare, her eyes narrowed. “That’s very uncouth, Jimmy, love --”

“Don’t call me  _ love _ ,” Jimmy retorted instantly.

Thomas watched the way her eyes flickered between himself and Jimmy, who was sitting next to him and leaning into his space to spear a tomato. He pushed Jimmy away, ignoring the hurt look Jimmy cast in his direction.

“What are your plans for today?” he asked Lady A, with the sole intent of distracting her and zero interest in her answer.

“Perhaps a little socialising,” said Lady A, carefully watching Jimmy as he pushed his remaining slices of bacon into various arrangements on his plate. “I’m not uncivilised, you know.” 

“In which primitive culture is that?” Jimmy derided as he selected a piece of bacon to scarf down in three large bites. He was making a rather large production of his annoyance. 

“Oh, Jimmy, you should know very well that I still have an animalistic side,” Lady Anstruther cooed around a coy sip of orange juice. Despite the flirty nature of her comment, there was something calculating about her discourse, and Thomas frowned, unsure what she was playing at. 

Jimmy ruffled, squaring his shoulders as he hissed, “I don’t think your talk’s particularly appropriate for the  _ table _ .” 

Sensing Jimmy’s mood, Thomas refreshed Jimmy’s teacup, hoping the heat would help soothe him a bit. Lady A watched the exchange with an unreadable face before abruptly standing. Blotting her lips on her napkin, she announced, “And I think I’ve grown a bit bored of the table, then.” She dropped the napkin onto her plate in a rather unladylike fashion and added, “I’ll leave you two to socialise on your  _ own _ .” 

“Perfect,” Jimmy said as he dropped a trio of sugar lumps into his tea. He stirred the brew furiously and then took a long sip. 

“That hasn’t worked out so badly,” Thomas observed as they watched Anstruther sweep out of the cabin with no shortage in drama. “Lady A’s gone, Cecil’s off your back. A good morning’s work.”

Staring at something drowned in his teacup, Jimmy lowered his voice with an admission: “I hope you know all that weren’t to do with anyone but me,” he said as the steam wafting off his tea curled under his chin.

Thomas scraped his beans -- which he had not asked for -- further away from his toast as he asked, “What d’you mean?”

“I get real chaffed when people are too familiar with me, that’s all,” Jimmy elaborated as he ran his thumb around the rim of his teacup with uncertainty. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bothered that it were anythin’ to do with Cecil bein’, y’know… a bloke and all that.” 

Pressing his lips together nervously, Thomas felt as though he was missing the point of Jimmy’s words. “Alright.”

But Jimmy still seemed to have a need to explain himself. “It don’t matter if it’s a bloke or a lady or  _ anyone _ , really,” he said, now very tense, as if the very subject was enough to cue the same sort of anxiety. “I just hate bein’ touched. Y’know, like I’m a thing.” 

Perhaps Thomas had been too familiar with Jimmy himself. Perhaps that was why Jimmy was stumbling through this explanation. He would have to watch himself even more carefully in future, though he always did his best not to impose on Jimmy’s time or personal space. Maybe it was the dancing, though Jimmy’s idea, that had worried him. “I know,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Jimmy shrugged. “S’not your fault.”

Thomas blinked at him, more confused than ever. “Oh. Alright.” He glanced over the remains of their meals and stood up with purpose, hoping to drag Jimmy out of his mood. “Well, shall we move on?”

Jimmy seemed to have fallen into his teacup, his voice very far away as he agreed with a soft, “Yeah.” 

\--

They spent the morning in their cabin, since a light rain had begun outside and they were both sick of dealing with other people. They alternated reading, playing cards and chatting amiably about trivial topics. It was a good hour or two before Thomas happened to glance down and notice a large drip of something that looked suspiciously like baked bean sauce on the front of his waistcoat, down near the bottom hem.

“Jimmy,” he said at once. “Would you like to explain why there is bean sauce on my waistcoat?”

Jimmy was flicking through a film magazine, spread out in the middle of the floor with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Plumes of tobacco-laced vapor expelled from him with each breath as he idly turned over a page and said, “I appreciate that you find me wise in all things, but not even I have  _ all  _ the answers.” 

“You should have  _ this _ one,” Thomas said, his irritation rising. “I didn’t  _ eat _ any bloody beans. I don’t like them. So who was it thievin’ off my plate?”

Quickly realising that he was the sole culprit, Jimmy rolled over onto his back and propped himself up on bent elbows, worrying his cigarette between his lips with apprehension. “Is it terrible?” he asked, peering at Thomas’s waistcoat like the smear of brown sauce wasn’t all that noticeable on its field of blue. “Sorry.” 

At the sight of his contrition, Thomas’s short-lived anger melted away again -- mostly. He still had to clean the damn waistcoat, after all. “Yes,” he said, regardless. It  _ was _ terrible, after all. “I’ve walked all over the boat lookin’ like this,” he added, unfastening the buttons and hanging the waistcoat on the back of the chair he was sitting on. He unhooked the room key from his watch chain before continuing: “And I haven’t brought any supplies, so now I’ll have to go and deal with this. Thanks for that.”

“I’m sure  _ someone _ on this ship has got a bit of Lux,” Jimmy said by way of defense.

Thomas waved at him noncommittally on his way out of the door and headed off in search of the laundry room. There had to be one somewhere; he had seen a notice on the messageboard telling passengers how to arrange for their clothes to be washed (for a fee). Eventually, he came across a maid and managed to get some directions out of her, though she didn’t seem to be sure whether she ought to tell him. In the end, though, he did find the room, tucked out of the way on a lower deck.

There were cupboard doors on one wall; Thomas was willing to bet that that would be where he found his soap. As he made to enter the room, one of the crew intercepted him.

“I’m sorry, sir, may I direct you somewhere?” he simpered, smiling falsely.

“Yes,” Thomas replied. “Direct me to the soap.”

“We offer a comprehensive washing and spot-cleaning service on board,” the man said, his expression never wavering. “If you’d like to leave your items with us, we can have them back to you, good as new, within twenty-four hours.”

“I don’t want to leave my items with you,” Thomas said doggedly. “I just want a little sliver of soap. I’m sure that can’t trouble you if you’ve got enough to run a ‘comprehensive washing service’.”

“I’m afraid guests aren’t allowed in this area, sir,” the man insisted.

Thomas gestured past him into the small room, where he could see that damned valet of Lord Bigsby’s (father of the crying child they had met) rifling through the pockets of the dinner jacket he was presumably supposed to be cleaning. “ _ He’s _ in here,” Thomas pointed out, making the valet look up in slight alarm just as he withdrew his hand from his own trouser pocket. Thomas was pretty sure he had just heard the jangle of loose coins being secreted away; the valet was probably taking advantage of the crewman’s distraction.

“Mr. Bigsby’s a  _ valet _ , sir,” the man said reproachfully.

“Well I haven’t got a valet, and I’d like to clean my waistcoat before the stain sets,” Thomas ground out, finally losing his temper and pushing past the interfering crewman. He ignored the continuing protests as he rummaged through the cupboard, quickly coming across the big box of Lux flakes, which he poured into a jar he also found in there. He whirled around and raised the jar of soap flakes in a mock toast. “Thank you,” he said insincerely, continuing to blank the man out as he left the laundry room and made his way back up to his and Jimmy’s cabin.

Out of habit, he counted the portholes as he passed, before turning the key in their own lock and opening the door **.** Inside, he was greeted with an odd scene. 

The cabin had a small writing desk, which Jimmy had opened up to sit at with no apparent purpose. His arms were folded over the desk’s edge, his chin balanced atop his two fists, which were stacked one over the other, as he glared in silence at something Thomas couldn’t quite see from the doorway. 

“You’ll never guess what I just saw,” Thomas said by way of greeting. “Or maybe you will, since you suspected him from the start. That valet. Pinchin’ pennies out of his master’s pockets.” As he spoke, he dropped the jar onto his bottom bunk to remove the coat that he had donned for his excursion.

With almost eerie stillness, Jimmy remained as he was, mired in unheard ruminations. 

“So if he doesn’t limit himself to cold, hard cash, he might be our culprit after all,” Thomas went on as he hung his coat in the wardrobe. He made to retrieve his waistcoat from the back of the chair Jimmy was now sitting on, but as he laid his hands on it he saw what Jimmy was gazing at so intently. “What you doing with my watch, there?” he asked, curious.

The soft ticking of the watch clicked like the beat of a metronome in the wordless atmosphere that fogged the space around Jimmy. The silence was a weird sort, almost violently hanging on like it was a mere heartbeat away from exploding. It was disarmingly raw to see Jimmy left in a place where he wasn’t hidden behind bravado -- or even the faintest whisper of a sound. It was as if he were trying to dismantle the watch with just the power of his stare -- or perhaps piece together an array of fobs and gears that had fallen apart inside his skull. 

Thomas nudged Jimmy’s shoulder with his elbow. “You’re quiet. Should I start askin’ if  _ you’ve _ stolen the necklace?” he teased.

At length, Jimmy asked Thomas -- or perhaps the watch: “You ever have those sorts of thoughts that come and go so often, you lose sight of what they’re about?” He didn’t shift even an iota, his only movement the quiver of his lips. 

Thomas turned his own eyes to the watch, searching for answers. It seemed to have hypnotised Jimmy without any need to swing from side to side. “Not really.” He frowned, wondering, “Is something the matter?” He had only been gone for half an hour or so.

“I can’t tell,” said Jimmy hollowly. “But I have these sorta notions so often I wonder if I ought to have a better grip on it. But I just end up wishin’ I could climb out of meself instead.” There was clearly something that Jimmy was distracted by, but not quite comfortable with saying so forwardly, even to Thomas. It left Thomas wondering why his watch -- of all the objects in the world -- had elicited such contemplation out of the blond. 

Then Jimmy mumbled into the knot of his hands: “I’m afraid.”  

Thomas felt a strange rush of adrenaline, protectiveness and tenderness all at once. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out -- though he managed to redirect his hand to the chair Jimmy was sitting on, instead of resting one hand at the back of Jimmy’s neck like he wanted to. It  _ hurt _ to think that his attempts at giving comfort through touch would be so unwanted, even if he knew that it wasn’t anything to do with him specifically. “What are you afraid of?” he asked.

“Not havin’ a clue what I’m doin’ here,” Jimmy said vaguely, making it uncertain whether he meant it in a grand sense or not. “Of bein’ on me owns.” 

Thomas tightened his grip on the chair-back, the fabric of the waistcoat that hung there crimping between his fingers. “You never have to be alone,” he promised, not quite daring to pledge himself alongside.

“You say that, but sometimes I wonder if it even matters whether I’ve got a sea of friends or not. I still feel the same if it’s just me or a full room,” Jimmy went on, still stuck in a place that only he really understood. Thomas waited in silence for him to continue. “When I was younger, it didn’t bother me, I guess. But maybe ‘cause I didn’t know what it meant to be lonely ‘til I had…” He trailed off, returning to his original state, though his breathing was laboured with an intake of emotion. He continued to stare at the watch, unflinching; he murmured, “I s’pose you don’t know what you’re missin’ ‘til you lose it, right?” 

Thomas was wary of pressing too far, so instead he decided to share a confidence in the hope of inviting one in return. “It was like that with my dad,” he said, even though his voice was rough and trembling. It was a struggle to talk about his father after twenty years of pretending he didn’t exist. “I hated him, I really hated him by the end. An’ he was no good for me, I know that. But somehow, when he kicked me out, all I could think about was the good things he’d done. Like…” He reached out with his free hand and trailed one tentative finger over the glass covering the watch face. “Like making me this. He gave it to me for my twelfth birthday. Gave me a hidin’ when I dropped it down a rabbit hole one day, but… He gave it to me.”

Thomas was quiet for a few moments, the memories of that day overwhelming him until he couldn’t speak. His father had been livid, almost purple in the face. He was like a completely different person to the man who had given Thomas the watch in the first place. Thomas’s fingers tapped against the glass again. “Then I got angry that he was takin’ even that goodness away from me. Not the watch, I mean, the memories. ‘Cause even the good ones went sour after all that.”

“But you miss him. At least sometimes, right?” Jimmy asked, finally twisting so that he could look Thomas in the eye as he spoke. His lips were parted into a curious shape. 

Thomas had to blink away the threat of unexpected tears at the question. “Yeah,” he managed to say. “Sometimes I do.”

“I don’t miss my old man,” Jimmy volunteered candidly, the depth of such a personal fact almost shocking to Thomas. “I don’t think I learned to miss anybody until too late in me life. A big waste -- right through me fingers and I didn’t even realise it. So now I just… think about it.” His diction became jerky, like he wasn’t sure how to explain himself.  

“Doesn’t have to be a waste,” Thomas offered. “If you’ve no baggage, you can start again whenever you like.”

“If it were that easy, I wouldn’t be so bothered,” Jimmy sighed morosely. “If it were that easy, I’d… I’d…” He was interrupted by a large sniffle, which he quickly tried to mask with his sleeve, though the lapse in his usual control was already apparent. “I’m just left wagin’ wars in me own head, I guess. And I wish I could tell you all the things stuck in there, but I just… I just  _ can’t _ , alright? I can’t.” 

“Alright,” Thomas agreed quietly. “But if I can help you in any way, I hope you’ll tell me that at least.”

“You can help by just…” Jimmy stopped himself with a swallow caught in the back of his throat. He physically turned in the chair so that his legs hung off it sideways, a better angle for speaking to Thomas: “Just stay with me, alright?” 

Thomas could hardly breathe for a moment, shocked by the depth of sincerity in Jimmy’s eyes as they shone up at him. “For as long as you want me,” he promised, which wasn’t quite ‘‘til death us do part’ but had the same resonance to Thomas.

For the first time since Thomas had returned, Jimmy offered him a smile, though it was still wan in comparison to his usual grins. “Forever and a day,” he entreated Thomas, gripping the back of the chair. His fingers overlapped Thomas’s, a fact that didn’t seem to bother him nearly as much as Thomas would have expected. “For all the time we can’t get back.” 

Thomas beamed back at him, a laugh colouring his words as he vowed: “Forever, then. And an extra day, too.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! Link has been embarrassingly busy lately. Anyway, she hopes that everyone is still enjoying this! Laramie does too! The chapter title is another American songbook title. Link can't help herself. SO SUE HER.
> 
> Laramie would like to add that he's impressed by Link's ability to come up with any kind of chapter title, as he is terrible at it.


	10. Hidden Up His Sleeve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to cheat a cheater.

 

As the ship neared Spain, Jimmy grew more and more anxious about letting Lady Anstruther out of his sight. He had invented a number of plausible scenarios about Lady A making some kind of grand escape when they sailed into port, most of which he began to accept as fact the more imminent their arrival became. He lamented to Thomas frequently about it with gathering urgency, both terrified of the consequences if his fears were realised, and increasingly irritated by Lady Anstruther’s presence. She continued on as if nothing had changed since Jimmy was young and in her service, which cued a certain panic within him. 

Thomas had suggested that they merely revoke her key while they were docked, so that they could keep tabs on her while the risk of her making a getaway was high. Jimmy was consoled by the idea, though it didn’t help make him any less anxious about Lady A’s troublesome unpredictability. Part of him wanted to make an escape of his own when they landed -- just he and Thomas on their own in a new place, untethered -- but the sense of unfinished business persisted. After countless nights spent staring up at moonlit patterns upon his ceiling, choked with resentment, he knew he would never get a pleasant sleep until he had witnessed Anstruther suffering as he had suffered. Irrational as the sentiment might have appeared to anyone else, Jimmy was committed to seeing it through at any cost, if only for his own tranquility. 

Anstruther, however, seemed determined to enjoy herself -- if only to spite Jimmy. Despite being dragged onto the ship against her will to a destination Jimmy knew she had no interest in, she socialised with their other passengers, dressed up the best she could in the plain frocks Thomas had bought her, and generally always made sure that there was something to entertain her. One night, it was cards. Jimmy didn’t think that he and Thomas were actually welcome there, but he was loathe to take his eye off her, so he impressed himself upon the situation. In a smoking lounge meant for gentlemen, she dominated a table in the centre, surrounded by a few familiar faces: Felix was to her left, while Lord Bigsby’s valet was to her right; Jimmy sat next to him, separated from Thomas by a seat occupied by a man who introduced himself as Finn. 

“Place your bets, fellahs,” said Lady A in a nasally New York accent that didn’t quite sound right. They were embroiled in a game of gin rummy that had been all in good fun until Felix had suggested making things a bit more lively with a little wager. Jimmy would have protested violently against it if it wouldn’t have been incredibly suspicious to do so, and instead kept a paranoid eye on every IOU Lady A turned over after a bad hand. Meanwhile, Bigsby’s valet had earned himself Thomas’s scrutiny with his takings: Jimmy was fairly certain Thomas was trying to sniff out a cheat. 

The next round went to Finn, who seemed surprised that he had won the pot. Jimmy watched Lady A waste no effort in writing out a loopy notation of her loss, which she passed to Finn with a glance at Jimmy that made him worry he would be stuck paying out at the end. Aside from this, he and Thomas were holding up reasonably well. Jimmy had gained only a little more than he started with, but by the looks of things Thomas had almost doubled his cash. Jimmy envied his skills and luck, but admired him too. Jimmy always seemed to pick the wrong suit to look for, or else he’d change his mind and split a pair only to see the card he had been looking for originally sail under his nose. He blamed it entirely on distraction.

“I say,” said Felix. “Does anybody have a cigarette? You’re a smoking man, aren’t you, Mr. Barrow?”

Thomas shrugged. “Sorry. I’m out.”

Felix hummed. “I suppose I shall have to wait until the morning and buy some more.”

They played on. When Lady Anstruther lost her third hand in a row, Jimmy got annoyed. He never remembered her being so clumsy at cards in the past, and then became determined that she was doing it on purpose. His voice tight, he shoved back from the table, nearly tipping backwards out of his chair with the force of it as he announced bitterly, “That’s it; I’m done.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re skint already, old chap?” Felix goaded, his nose red with mirth and a healthy sampling of whiskey. 

“I’d like enough money to last me the rest of the voyage,” Jimmy huffed, once again distressed that everyone seemed to be focused on his fat wallet. He glanced around the smoking lounge, seeking out the barman attending to a selection of liquor on the other side of the cabin: “Or at least enough to see me through the night,” he muttered, wondering if it would be rude to start without Thomas.

“Oh, stay for one more hand, darling,” Lady Anstruther interjected just as Jimmy was about to stand up and purchase a gin for himself and a whiskey for Thomas. 

“Just one more hand, Jimmy,” Thomas urged in a much softer tone, which was much more commanding to Jimmy than Lady Anstruther’s shrill tone or the dulcet, male laughter that surrounded her. He looked as though he was enjoying himself, though he rubbed his inner forearm with his knuckles. It was a new habit that Jimmy had noticed so many times now, it was beginning to intrigue him.

“Fine,” Jimmy agreed grudgingly. He dragged his chair back up to the table and tapped the felt, waiting to be dealt in. Finn was the dealer this time; once Jimmy had his seven cards he rearranged them into groups. It was not a good hand: he had a pair and nothing else. When he looked up, most of the other players were still examining their cards, but Thomas was puffing away on a cigarette. He caught Thomas’s eye.

“Want one?” Thomas offered quietly, holding it up.

A grin spread over Jimmy’s face. “Thought you didn’t have any?”

Thomas shrugged with a secret smile. “I found some.”

“Go on, then.” He held out his hand for one.

In a gesture that was fast becoming familiar, Thomas put a second cigarette between his lips and lit it before passing it over. Finn pressed his hand closer to his chest as if he feared being spied upon as the cigarette changed hands in front of him. Jimmy tucked the filter between his lips and let the cigarette dangle over his chin as he surveyed the other players. It all seemed less terrible with a cloud of nicotine in his lungs.

But then he noticed Lady Anstruther’s expression. She wasn’t even looking at her cards; she was frowning at Jimmy. It made him squirm to think that he was being watched, almost as though she were trying to pin him down. He snorted to himself, wondering what justified such a suddenly intrusive attitude from the usually flippant dowager, and then rolled his eyes in Thomas’s direction to see if he was experiencing anything remotely similar. Thomas caught Jimmy’s glance from beneath heavy lashes, and arched his eyebrows before flicking his attention back down to his cards with a subtle lift at one corner of his mouth. He picked a card from the pile and swapped it for one in his hand. Play moved on to Finn while Thomas shifted the fan of cards he held. When he looked back at Jimmy, he seemed surprised to see that Jimmy’s eyes were still on him.

Jimmy forgot to look away until Finn nudged him to indicate that it was his turn. Feeling his cheeks heat up, Jimmy grabbed the top card on the pile and threw another down at random. It was only after Felix had picked up the Jack of Clubs that Jimmy had just discarded that Jimmy realised he had just broken his only pair. He swore under his breath, thinking that at least he had a 3 and a 5 of Hearts; if he happened to pick up the 4, he’d have a triplet.

The 4 didn’t show up for several circuits of the table. Jimmy entertained himself by watching Thomas’s face, trying to figure out whether it was going well for him or not. Was the quirk in his mouth a good thing, or a misdirection? Was the way he kept flicking glances at Jimmy indicative of sharing victory, or imminent demise?

Eventually, Jimmy managed to cobble together two pairs, but the eager way Finn had snatched at a couple of the cards on offer suggested that Jimmy was behind him, at least. He still couldn’t figure out how Thomas was doing.

In the end, it didn’t matter. Jimmy swapped his useless card for a marginally less useless one and Felix snapped up the discarded one, a broad smile spreading over his face. Felix threw his hand down ostentatiously and said smugly, “Gin.”

The others groaned and put down their cards. Felix eagerly reached for the coins and bank notes being passed in his direction and rifled through them, counting. He seemed to have made out fairly well, though it didn’t stop him from making a rather obnoxious observation: “And your contribution, Jimmy? You never anted up.”

Jimmy curled his lip and delivered a particularly unimpressed look at Felix. “I didn’t even  _ want  _ to have a go this time around,” he complained, making no attempt to reach for his wallet in protest. 

“Well, it’s not fair if everyone else has to pay up except you,” Felix chided in a way that just came off as condescending. “We’re all friends here -- so let’s stay that way, what?” 

Now addled with righteous indignation, Jimmy crossed his arms contrarily over his chest, still refusing to relinquish even a penny. “Friends don’t harass each other over a stupid  _ game _ . It’s not like you’re exactly broke. What difference does a few shillings make?” 

“It makes a difference to more than just me!” Felix blustered.

Thomas narrowed his eyes. “Like who?”

“I’ve got a family that needs seeing to, alright? People I care about who depend on me,” Felix answered in a brusque tone that didn’t fit his usual jovial nature. 

Unexpectedly, it was the valet who had something to say about that: “So do the rest of us,” he interjected with irritation, clearly displeased that his previous luck had been turned on its head. “But you don’t see us rummaging through pockets for every last coin.” 

Thomas shot the valet a particularly significant stare that went unnoticed by everyone but Jimmy. 

Felix struck up a righteous position, clearly on the defensive. “The rest of you don’t have a dangerously ill niece, either,” he sniffed as he folded the money and tucked it into his inner breast pocket. Then he picked up the IOUs Lady Anstruther had addressed to him and put on a much kinder face as he said to her, “And you, love, owe £5.”

And, like clockwork, Lady A put on her sweetest face and said, “Jimmy, be a dear and pay the man.” 

Jimmy sputtered. 

“You can pay your own debt,” Thomas told her in a hard voice.

“Oh, but  _ darling _ ,” Lady A drawled in Thomas’s direction. “What lady would expect to need her purse when she’s being shown a nice time by her gentleman?” 

“You’re toeing a line,  _ Betty _ ,” Jimmy hissed across the table, not at all concerned if the others thought he was being nasty. His patience was dangerously close to draining out, and he could only curse the dim part of him that had thought it cruel to keep Lady Anstruther under lock and key for the entire voyage. He was quickly reevaluating that opinion: Lady A wasn’t  _ human  _ enough for anything so cordial. 

“The fact remains that the charming gentleman needs to be paid, and you know I don’t have any cash on me,” Lady A said, smiling sharkishly.

“Then  _ figure it out _ ,” Jimmy snapped. “It’s the only thing you’re good for.” 

“Now, now,” interrupted Felix, who seemed a little inappropriately jovial considering that half the table was teetering on the edge of a row, “I’m sure we can work  _ something _ out that leaves everyone happy, what?”

“How about payment in kind?” the valet put in snidely, eyeing up Jimmy’s cufflinks. “I’m sure what you’re wearing is worth a pretty penny or two.”

With the pinpoint accuracy of a hawk circling for prey, Felix zeroed in on Jimmy’s accoutrements -- the fob on his watch and the glint of his cufflinks and studs, the silken pocket square shoved into his breast pocket. “Excellent suggestion, Jennings,” Felix lauded the valet with a chortle. Jimmy scowled, somehow convinced that any sort of familiarity between Felix and the valet was clear evidence that they were in it together. Felix held out his hand and scrunched the fingers as though his empty palm was wanting: “How about those, eh?” he suggested with another pointed glance at Jimmy’s cufflinks, which bore tiny diamonds that glittered in the yellowy light. “It’d be the gentlemanly thing to do for your lady.” 

Jimmy was less than pleased at the suggestion, but if it meant getting everyone’s attention off him, then it was worth it. “Fine. Whatever,” he grouched as he moodily shoved his jacket sleeves up and started unfastening his cuffs. “I didn’t like these ones  _ anyway _ .” 

“You want the shirt off our backs too?” Thomas said dryly.

Felix opened his mouth to say something that probably bordered on insulting, but Jimmy never gave him the chance to follow through. Annoyed, he flung the cufflinks onto the table, where they rolled across the green felt and settled against the collapsing stack of discarded cards that occupied the table’s centre, and then stood up with enough force to nearly kick his chair over on its back. “You’re all a bunch of crooks,” Jimmy sneered at the other half the table, pointedly, addressing Felix, Lady A and Jennings, the valet, all at once. 

“Just ‘cause you lost, doesn’t make  _ us  _ crooks,” Jennings growled.

“No, you don’t need us for that,” Thomas agreed. “You do it all by yourselves.” With that, he pushed back from the table and turned his back on them all to leave them behind. It took Jimmy a few moments to notice that the rest of them were watching him stare after Thomas as he stalked off, and, realising he had been caught, put on a particularly rude display as he stomped off after him. 

Once he was out on the deck, Jimmy quickened his pace in order to catch up with Thomas. They easily fell into step together, passing through the corridors that led to their cabin without any discussion. Jimmy spotted Thomas throwing a glance at his flapping shirtsleeves.

“Felix is a  _ twit _ ,” Thomas said simply, and it pleased Jimmy to hear him use the same word he himself always did to describe Felix.

“A sneakier twit than I ever gave him credit for,” Jimmy added with a snort. He kept messing with his sleeves, focused on how absurd his slovenly appearance made him feel. It gave him a sense of control to keep himself looking sharp. “I don’t like how he and that shifty valet ganged up on us. I bet they’re splittin’ our winnings as we speak.” 

They reached their own door. Jimmy paused to wait for Thomas to open it, before following him inside. As Thomas’s hand emerged from tucking the key away in his jacket, the other came up to make sure the sleeve was tugged down right to the base of his thumb. He flicked a nervous glance up at Jimmy from beneath his dark eyelashes.

“Is somethin’ the matter?” Jimmy asked as he closed the door behind them and moved to sit on Thomas’s bottom bunk so he could remove his brogues. His attention kept flitting to Thomas, wondering if there was some sort of connection between his mood and his funny habit. 

Thomas’s fingers curled into loose fists. “Ah, no,” he said, somewhat unconvincingly. “Nothing. I was just wondering about… my cufflinks.”

“What about them?” Jimmy asked, scrunching up his face.

For a moment, Thomas looked at the studs on the inside of his wrist. “Well…” he began. “You’ve lost a pair of yours, now. And you’ve already given me some. So I was wondering if you’d take these ones, as a sort of exchange.”

“Oh,” Jimmy hummed, a little alert to something odd, though he couldn’t quite put his thumb on what it was. He shrugged, “Don’t worry about it. It’s just things.” 

“A gift, then,” Thomas offered, before adding more quietly, “I’d like you to have them.”

Cornered by the same sentiment with which he’d given Thomas the other pair of cufflinks, Jimmy admitted defeat, and acquiesced. “Alright, alright -- but only ‘cause you’ve insisted,” he said, his heart racing with a traitorous pulse at the idea of receiving something so personal from Thomas.

From his perch on the bottom bunk, he watched Thomas look again at the jewellery and bite his bottom lip, as though he suddenly regretted the offer. Thomas half-turned before beginning to unfasten the cufflinks, his arms hidden by his body as he fumbled with them. Another furtive look was thrown in Jimmy’s direction.

The behaviour leapt out as even more strange to Jimmy, like an amplified variation of the neurotic cuff-tugging he’d come to notice. “Don’t feel obligated, though,” Jimmy supplied, growing a little concerned that Thomas was only trying to even out some kind of imagined debt. 

“No, I -- I  _ want _ you to have them,” Thomas repeated, looking at Jimmy sincerely over his shoulder. There was an odd kind of intensity in his expression, as though what he said had a second meaning that wasn’t being spoken in words. “They were the last thing I took from my father, so they’re… important. And I want you to have them.” He nodded slightly as he said this last, and turned, keeping his hands close to his stomach.

Jimmy might have been shot through the chest and pinned to the wall behind him with the weight of what Thomas had just told him. “Th-That’s too much, Thomas,” Jimmy stammered as Thomas approached the bed with the cufflinks as if he was bringing Jimmy an offering. “I can’t take that away from you. I just  _ couldn’t _ .” 

“Well, you’re not taking them very far away,” Thomas teased, a tiny spark of very welcome warmth coming into his face. Yet even as he turned his wrist to hold the jewellery out in his left hand, he shifted the shirt cuff. He waited, holding them out in front of him, the unfastened cuffs balanced over his wrist. 

Jimmy warmed at the idea of remaining close to Thomas long enough to keep such a sentimental item within reach. Tentatively, he reached for the black cufflinks in the cradle of Thomas’s palm, aware that Thomas’s whole hand was trembling as his fingertips grazed the leather of Thomas’s glove -- a wholly unsettling observation that seemed so unlike the smug, confident man he’d left at Downton all that time ago. He plucked the onyx studs up carefully, and Thomas grew stiff, which came off as even weirder still. Jimmy’s eyebrows fused together in a tight knot over his nose, his free hand flying up to grab Thomas’s wrist so suddenly, Thomas had no time to react. Instead, Thomas just stared at Jimmy with wide eyes, momentarily frozen. Jimmy had no idea what he was looking for or what he might find, but then Thomas’s sleeve, jostled by the impact, fell away, and Jimmy went pale. 

Thomas tried for a moment to pull away, but Jimmy held on tightly and heard him give a resigned sigh. He stayed still, his wrist gripped in Jimmy’s fingers, as Jimmy tried to take in what he had uncovered.

He had seen wounds before; everyone who had been to battle had seen wounds. He had even seen the wound in Thomas’s hand -- knew exactly how it had got there. But this was so unlike anything that Jimmy had laid eyes on previously. It ran from the bottom of Thomas’s left wrist right up under the white sleeve. It was in a state of healing, something less than an open cut but far more than a scar; Jimmy doubted it still bled, but the skin was raised and reddened.

Jimmy wanted to punch Thomas; he also wanted to cry. In the end, all he did was look up at Thomas, who had turned his face away, and whisper, “Why?” 

Thomas’s breaths were quiet. He had fixed his eyes on the carpet, and was blinking rapidly. Then he sniffed, his shoulders settling very slightly. “There are things… I didn’t tell you about in my letters,” he confessed slowly. “I didn’t… want to burden you with it.” He traced the start of the wound very, very gently with the tip of one forefinger. “I just wanted it to stop,” he said, in such a low voice that Jimmy could barely hear him. “I couldn’t see --” His voice cracked, tears gathering in his eyes. “Couldn’t see a way out -- how it could get better. This was my way out.”

“Way out of what, exactly?” Jimmy softly wondered, doing his best to keep himself on an even keel. His thumb was pressed into the heart of Thomas’s leather-clad palm, tense with a yearning to caress the angry gash in Thomas’s white flesh, though he knew it wouldn’t ever be enough to heal the damage. But he could feel the tremble of Thomas’s heart through thrumming veins, a reminder of the indestructible vitality he adored in Thomas so. 

“Everything…” Thomas murmured. “I was losing my job, and there was nothing else. I’d already lost my best friend, and there was no one I could even tell about it, because they’d think that was  _ unseemly  _ as well. There was no one who even knew me; certainly no one who’d call themselves my friend. ‘Cept Baxter, but she’s… sometimes I think she knows me  _ too _ well, but she still never understands.”

“That’s better than nothin’,” Jimmy said with a pensive frown, his diction slow with careful uncertainty. “I mean, it’s not like you were left totally… y’know…  _ alone _ .” Something in Thomas’s face instilled a lethargy in Jimmy’s words, which continued to fidget through his clumsy lips as an unsettling realisation shifted ominously from beneath a veil of shadow. He nearly bit his tongue clamping his teeth together, suddenly afraid to give life to such a horrible thing.

“She was the only one who wanted to even  _ try _ and I just couldn’t…” Thomas trailed off. There were a few seconds of silence as Jimmy waited for him to continue. His voice was slightly stronger as he said, “She knows almost everything about me, and I was trying to be  _ better  _ than that, even though no one gave a  _ damn _ .”

Jimmy was then mired in confusion, though he barely felt brave enough to seek clarification. “Someone does,” he managed to say with a raspy swallow. He rolled the cufflinks against the top of one thigh beneath a suddenly sweaty palm; “I do.” 

A little shrug rolled Thomas’s shoulders, like the matter was inconsequential; or like he didn’t believe it. “You weren’t there,” he said quietly. “I was just surrounded by all these people who never trusted me, always thought I was out to  _ corrupt  _ someone.”

The cufflinks abruptly stilled beneath Jimmy’s hand, pressing them sadistically into his thigh at the implication. “Why would anyone think that?” Jimmy wondered, though his face was hot with indignation. “You wrote me that you were goin’ to try and make do with new friends since I went on me way. You said you were turnin’ over a whole new  _ leaf.  _ You even said you might quit smokin’! You…  _ you said _ \-- !” His sentence rumpled itself into an agitated groan that ricocheted through gnashed teeth and puffed cheeks. He lifted the fist that was wrapped around the cufflinks and banged it into his thigh. 

“And I  _ tried _ , Jimmy,” Thomas responded through a short, humourless laugh. “I was  _ trying _ to make friends with that footman -- Andy. And from everyone I get: ‘keep your hands off him’, ‘leave him alone’; even  _ he  _ caught wind of it all and didn’t want anything else to do with me. I  _ know _ it’s my own fault after what happened with… with you. I just thought… after all this time they’d…”

“What’s it to do with me?” Jimmy huffed, his shoulders squared as his back stiffened. “That were  _ completely  _ different.” He dropped Thomas’s hand in a fit of distress as he took to passing the cufflinks between his hands with unbridled agitation. “That Andy didn’t seem even a  _ whit  _ like me! Just ‘cause he’s a bloke, they assume you’re some sort of -- of  _ pervert  _ who’s out to chase every pair of trousers that comes through the door? Like you ain’t got feelin’s or nothin’, and just some wild libido?” Jimmy was building to a crescendo of absolute insult, irritated to hear such insinuations -- and even more so when he considered the fact he hadn’t been there to help. He sighed heavily, “That ain’t you at all! Even a man like -- like  _ you  _ \-- can have blokes as friends. Same as anyone else.” He was rambling and was only just quick enough to catch himself before he started vomiting anything more in his impassioned tirade. 

To Jimmy’s surprise, his remarks won him a small smile. Thomas swallowed, and nodded. “Exactly,” he agreed. “And I think… they do see that now. Andy and I, we’ve become friends. Not quite like, well -- but we’re friends.”

Something in the air loosened Jimmy’s spirit as he said, “Well, nothin’ll ever be  _ quite  _ like that. One of a kind, me.” 

“That you are,” Thomas answered.

Jimmy’s breath hitched, overwhelmed with an onslaught of emotion that had been carefully locked in a secret box and tucked out of sight. He clutched the cufflinks with the same intensity he wished he could clutch Thomas. He swallowed and murmured, “You should’ve told me. You should’ve at  _ least  _ told me. I’d’ve… I’d’ve…” He trailed off, fixing his attention on the stripes adorning Thomas’s pillow as he said in a low whisper, “I’d’ve come runnin’.” 

“Would you?” Thomas asked meekly, sounding full of vulnerability.

In another flurry of unexpectedness, Jimmy flung his arms around Thomas’s torso to drag him into a hug that was made awkward by Jimmy’s position on the edge of the bed. He beat his forehead against Thomas’s bicep, his nose a little sticky with mucus. “You stupid, stupid  _ donkey _ ,” Jimmy berated without care. “You know I would’ve. For fuck’s sake.”  

Thomas said nothing, his silence more eloquent than words -- he  _ hadn’t _ known. Instead, he just let Jimmy rage.

“You’re my best friend,” Jimmy reiterated, as if Thomas needed clarification on the matter; “You’re -- you’re  _ dear  _ to me. And I...” 

Very slowly, Thomas moved to embrace Jimmy in turn. His arms encircled Jimmy’s shoulders, his hands coming to rest somewhere over Jimmy’s spine. “Thank you,” he said thickly. “That means a lot to me.”

Whatever Jimmy’s answer was, it was muffled in the fabric of Thomas’s shirt. Not that it would have mattered: there weren’t words to describe anything he could have possibly wanted to say. 

“Come again?” Thomas asked, softly shaking Jimmy’s shoulders. 

Jimmy drew his chin up so that he could catch Thomas’s eye. He stretched the linen of Thomas’s shirt across the small of his back with two fisted clumps of fabric and said in no small terms, “You’re s’posed to stay forever and a day. Don’t you be a liar, Thomas fuckin’ Barrow. Don’t you dare.” 

Lightly, Thomas’s thumbs ran over Jimmy’s shoulders as he said vaguely, “Alright.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone who's reading this ridiculous story. I hope that there are enough feels to make you smile and cry and all that soppy sort of stuff. In the meantime, let us know what you think! We creative types are very sensitive things. 
> 
> Also, you can start placing your bets on WHODUNIT 8D


	11. The Regatta Mystery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and Jimmy make a breakthrough in the case.

 

Thomas felt a hundred times calmer after confessing all to Jimmy. He had spent a lot of time on this journey staring at the sea, trying to draw strength from it. Now, it was as though he didn’t need to look at it -- it was constantly singing him a marine lullaby. He no longer had to hide. It had been jarring to have to conceal something from Jimmy; as though Thomas was disjointed. The only thing he had ever really hidden from Jimmy before had been the full extent of his feelings -- but Jimmy had always  _ known _ about them, on some level -- while this had felt like presenting a false image of himself with the hope that Jimmy could not see through it.

He could relax, now. It didn’t matter so much if his sleeves rode up a little; he wasn’t afraid of Jimmy’s questions any more. If only they hadn’t the matter of the necklace to worry them, the trip would have become idyllic. As it was, the pressure of time slipping away was always on his mind.

The day that they were due to put into their first port in Spain, Thomas sat with Jimmy on deck, eating sweets from a paper bag Thomas kept between his feet. They had locked Anstruther in her room to keep her from slipping away when the ship docked. Jimmy was gazing out to sea, while Thomas had his right hand palm-up in his lap and was staring at the tiny sliver of the wound visible below his sleeve. The scar on his right forearm was much smaller than the one on the left (he was right-handed, after all) and by the time he had started carving it, blood loss and doubt were taking over. It always seemed to be his left side that suffered more -- where his heart lived.

Thomas switched his attention to his left hand. It seemed silly, suddenly, to have the wound he had sustained in the trenches hidden. He had grown so used to Carson’s orders to keep it out of sight that he had continued to do so even when he was out of Carson’s jurisdiction.

He tugged on the glove, feeling the cream leather slide against his palm as he hesitantly pulled it off over his fingers.

“Give us another sweet,” Jimmy requested, holding out his hand without looking over.

In an almost dreamlike state, Thomas reached into the paper bag at his feet with his left hand, picked out a lemon sherbert at random, and held it out.

At the crinkling of the bag, Jimmy blindly groped for the proffered candy as he watched a pair of winging seagulls playfully looping around one another alongside the ship. His fingers found Thomas’s upturned palm and quickly closed around the sherbert, though they stilled at the discovery that he could feel the callused scar tissue of Thomas’s disfigured palm in place of worn-out leather. Thomas wondered if it bothered Jimmy as he carefully watched the little fluctuations in Jimmy’s expression, and then quickly forgot it as Jimmy snatched the sweet away. 

Thomas smiled to himself. “We’ve only got a few hours. Maybe we should look at that valet, Jennings, next,” he suggested.

“I thought you said he were just some workin’ bloke?” Jimmy said around the lemon sherbert, which he was tossing around his mouth like it was a toy to be played with. “Change of heart is it?” 

“He’s more suspicious than he appeared at first glance,” Thomas admitted easily. 

Arching his eyebrow with the smugness of someone who liked being right all the time, Jimmy goaded, “Glad you’ve finally come round.” 

“Hard not to,” Thomas shrugged. “Stealin’ pennies, and how he was at the card game. He’s up to something.”

“I still say he’s in on it with that Felix,” Jimmy said. The sweet rattled noisily against his teeth when he spoke. “Did you see the way they kept backin’ each other up with their bets?  _ We  _ used to do that, remember? With Alfred.” A tone of nostalgia descended upon Jimmy, which was only noticeable because he’d stopped sucking so obnoxiously on the sherbert. Just when he resumed his consumption of the sweet that he thought to add, “Maybe we ought to figure out how the pair of ‘em knows each other.” 

“Maybe they don’t. Maybe they only met on board.”

“Guilty until proven innocent, I say,” Jimmy countered, apparently quite fixed on the idea that there was some sort of collusion between the two. 

“Oh yes, definitely guilty,” Thomas agreed with a smirk. “But that doesn’t have to mean they’ve known each other for ages.”

The yellow sweet popped out between Jimmy’s lips as he caught it between his teeth, grinding into it with enough force to crunch into it. “S’pose it doesn’t matter, really,” Jimmy decided, folding his arms. “We just gotta figure out how to make ‘em turn on each other.” He curled his lip into a dangerous shape: “Like rats.” 

“How about divide and conquer?” Thomas suggested, lifting the bag of sweets onto his lap and selecting a humbug. “You go after Jennings, I’ll have a go at Felix.”

Jimmy rolled his sherbert around his mouth, considering. Eventually, he nodded, a certain determination settling upon his features. “Yeah, that sounds like the ticket,” he agreed, glancing at Thomas as Thomas popped the humbug into his mouth. “Let’s have another one for the road, alright?” He held out his hand expectantly, and Thomas deposited a peppermint into his open palm. Jimmy rustled it like he was shaking dice, and then added, “And another one for luck.” 

Thomas gave him a toffee and a stick of black liquorice. “You’ll finish my supply,” he teased, and tucked the sweets away in his coat pocket.

“What good are sweets if you don’t eat them?” Jimmy wondered with a roll of his eyes. He popped to his feet, glancing around like he was trying to decide which direction he ought to head off in. He seemed reluctant to go speeding off despite his energy. 

“All very well for you to say,” Thomas answered. “You haven’t bought these any more than you’ve bought your own cigarettes this whole voyage.” He stood up next to Jimmy. “Shall we meet at one for lunch?”

“I won’t be late,” Jimmy nodded emphatically before spinning comically on one heel to go on his way. He had a bounce in his step, though Thomas couldn’t rightly ascertain why. He supposed it was the abundance of sugar.

Thomas allowed himself to watch until Jimmy disappeared through a door, reminding himself of the lilt of Jimmy’s gait and the way his head would bob at odd moments. He was a strange man, really. Thomas had been guilty of drowning in the pleasure of his company on occasion, forgetting that there was a real man, a real brain, a real beating heart underneath his facade of distant disinterest. It was part of what had made Thomas doubt their closeness so desperately during their too-long separation.

However, now they were together again, Thomas had learned of Jimmy’s unorthodox history and the true story of his relationship with Lady Anstruther. It…  _ explained _ him, almost -- just a little. It opened the smallest crack of vulnerability in Jimmy’s protective front -- and better yet, Jimmy had come to  _ him _ , had voluntarily invited Thomas to see his unusual past. Jimmy wasn’t perfect; he wasn’t a ghost; he was a flawed, messy human being -- and Thomas loved him all the more for it.

Blinking, Thomas tore his eyes away from the now-closing door through which Jimmy had ventured and turned his thoughts to where he might find Felix. He had no real idea for predicting the other man’s movements, so instead decided on a semi-methodical search of the ship. He would start with the more public areas first, perhaps to end up in the dining room where he and Jimmy had planned to meet.

Accordingly, he did a quick circuit of the upper deck first, scanning for any sight of the squat, elderly man. With no success, he moved inside, wandering through to the games room and pausing to smoke by the wall as he surveyed the space. There was no sign of Felix there, either. He then tried the gym and the pool, though he didn’t think either place was a likely destination for Felix, who struck Thomas as rather unathletic. He took a casual go at the punching bag, went outside to smoke another cigarette, and then continued on his systematic hunt through the ship. 

It was not until he was passing through a corridor with doors set on both sides at unequal intervals that he got lucky; through an open door, he heard raised voices. Listening in automatically, he was able to identify Felix’s nasally tone.

“What do you  _ mean  _ I’ve been abusing the system? I’ve just as much a right to send a telegram as anyone else on board!” Felix complained loudly. Thomas lingered outside the door on the pretense of another smoke, eavesdropping. 

“Sir, you’re not the  _ only  _ passenger who might want to utilise the telegraph service,” came the response of a much younger man, who Thomas assumed was the communications officer on duty. “You’ll just have to wait.” 

“My business is  _ urgent _ ,” Felix squealed in what Thomas drolly labelled as a whine. 

But the communications officer seemed to have reached the end of his patience long before Thomas had arrived, and he snorted in annoyance, “ _ Urgent business  _ \-- as I’m sure you’re well aware -- is not a phenomenon unique to you, sir!” 

“But this is important -- you don’t understand!”

“I think you need to leave now, sir,” came the firm reply.

Felix’s tone abruptly changed, taking on a serious candor that sounded uncharacteristic. “I’ll report you,” Felix hissed loudly, causing Thomas to stare in the direction of his voice with a vaguely stupefied grimace. “I’ll make sure your commanding officer -- and  _ his  _ commanding officer -- knows what a useless lout you are. Because you clearly are unable to perform even the  _ basics  _ of your job!” 

“Sir!” the communications officer replied, soundly weirdly hurt. “I’m simply trying to explain that  _ other _ people wish to use the service as well. I’m not able to let you send another telegram until tomorrow at the earliest.”

“Tomorrow will be too late!” Felix snapped. There was a scuffle, like the scrape of chair legs against the floor, and then the shuffling of paper. Felix’s voice clamoured over the ruckus: “I’ve got to get this message out before we dock. A  _ life  _ hangs in the balance, for God’s sake, man!” 

There was a short pause. Thomas tapped his ash off onto the floor and pictured the communications officer mulling over Felix’s words.

“Whose life?”

A loud, theatrical huff escape Felix, who made his exasperation no secret. “It’s my little  _ niece _ , if you must know,” he snapped. There was a momentary pause, and Thomas took the opportunity to realign himself just enough so that he could espy the scene through the door. Felix was in the process of producing his wallet, assaulting the communications officer with a photograph that was too far away for Thomas to see properly. “Look at her!” Felix puffed; “She’s small and ill and the only thing in this world I care about! And it’s simply  _ dire  _ that I send word that I can afford her continued care. She’ll be cast out without the right treatment. She’ll  _ die _ . Do you want the death of a dear, sweet little girl on your conscience, hm? I say,  _ do you _ ?”   

“I -- well, that’s --”

Felix sniffed again, and suddenly the door was being thrown open. Thomas was afforded a clear view of the two men -- but Felix got a good look at Thomas, too.

“Ah -- Mr. Barrow,” Felix muttered. Then he puffed up again; “And why, might I ask, are you listening in on a  _ private _ conversation?”

Thomas shrugged nonchalantly, refusing to be rattled. “You’re wailing loud enough for the whole ship to listen in,” he observed casually.

“And I thought you came from decent breeding,” Felix derided, hastily cramming his wallet back into his trouser pocket. He jerked on the lapels of his sport coat and shook his head as if he was suddenly quite cold. “If you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”  

Felix pushed his way around Thomas, purposefully bumping into him as he marched on by. Thomas loitered and watched him go with narrowed eyes, his cigarette forgotten between two poised fingers. He wondered just how far Felix was prepared to go for his niece.

It was time to go and meet up with Jimmy.

Thomas made off in the opposite direction to Felix, his destination being the dining cabin. When his cigarette burnt out, he returned to the bag of sweets he had stashed in his coat pocket. On reaching the dining cabin, his eyes quickly found the slightly smug expression of Jimmy, sitting at one of the tables.

“How’d it go?” Jimmy asked before Thomas had even pulled his chair out all the way. There was something sizzling behind Jimmy’s eyes, and was particularly evident in the way he was drumming his fork and spoon against the edge of the table. 

“Felix is  _ certainly _ very concerned about that niece of his,” Thomas reported as he settled into the chair. “And apparently has an urgent need to tell his family that he can provide for her.”

“Y’don’t say,” mused Jimmy, still beating out a rhythm with his utensils. He was thoughtful for a moment, and then delivered his own findings: “‘Cause that Jennings were pretty brassed off about old Felix. Turns out they  _ were  _ countin’ cards that night. But Felix didn’t split the take like he was s’posed to. Makes sense now that you say all that, ‘cause the one thing Jennings had to say about the whole thing were that he hoped Felix’s little girl keeled over with whatever grimy disease’s got her bedridden. Or somethin’.” 

Then Jimmy shrugged and turned his attention to the room at large, apparently in search of a waiter. As if the prospect of food had become more important, he told Thomas in an offhand way, “By the by, I hope you like salmon. I took the liberty of orderin’ for you.” 

Thrown, Thomas could only blink for a moment as he took in Jimmy’s pronouncement. The fact of Jimmy ordering on his behalf (and plumping for his favourite fish) suddenly gave the meal unexpected connotations. Or maybe it didn’t. It must just be him, because Jimmy  _ didn’t feel that way _ . “Er -- yes,” Thomas managed to stutter, just before the pause became awkwardly prolonged.

Satisfied with even such a hesitant answer, Jimmy nodded, still scouring the dining cabin for a server. Upon locating one, he flagged the man over, demanded more bread for the table and an ale for each of them, and then clamoured for a cigarette from Thomas. His interest in Felix and Jennings vanished until he had a beer in hand, at which time he reopened the discussion.  

“We gotta make a move soon,” Jimmy said after a sip of beer. It left a foamy residue above his upper lip, which Thomas tried resolutely not to stare at. “Whichever one of those clodhoppers took that necklace is sure to make a getaway once we land.” 

“That leaves us three hours,” Thomas said, after consulting his pocket watch. He tried to think like Poirot, or perhaps more like Sherlock Holmes; because Sherlock Holmes would not have bothered to mess around searching bedrooms or any such nonsense at this stage. Holmes would allow the culprit to incriminate himself, just as in the Irene Adler case. Perhaps they didn’t need to figure out which of their suspects had taken the necklace -- they just had to wait by the gangplank when the ship docked and see who made a break for it. He relayed this idea to Jimmy.

“Sounds right,” agreed Jimmy with another slurp of beer. “Me money’s on Felix, for the record.” 

“And not the valet you were so sure was a criminal mastermind?” Thomas teased with a smile.

“Listen,” Jimmy argued back, though there was a quirk of smile about him as he leaned in to make his point; “A  _ criminal mastermind  _ wouldn’t get hustled playin’ bloody  _ gin _ . I can stand corrected, me.” 

Thomas sucked in a dry mouthful of air, suddenly very aware of the fact that there was a lot less space between Jimmy and himself than a moment before. He reached for his own glass of beer, hoping to find a bit of respite in its amber depths, and pretended like he hadn’t noticed anything about it. 

\--

After a leisurely (and sometimes tortuous) lunch, the pair reemerged on the outer deck just in time to see the beautiful red roofs and cathedral domes of Barcelona, bright against the cerulean sky, draw into view along the port side of the ship. Standing along the rail amid the crowd of other passengers watching the city approach, they made sure to position themselves near the point of disembarkation. Jimmy had held Thomas’s elbow at first, until Thomas shrugged away, feeling exposed.

Unlike the others, Thomas and Jimmy were focused on the people rather than the land. So far, there was no sign of either Felix or Jennings, but Thomas was sure it wouldn’t be long. He was dimly aware of the excitement around him as the ship was moored and the crew busied themselves with preparing to receive the gangways for departing passengers. Thomas forced himself to keep his attention on every face that passed by him -- determined to distract himself from thinking about the rather despondent look that had overtaken Jimmy when he’d uncoupled their arms. A nervous flutter stammered in his chest, stuck with worry that he’d somehow hurt Jimmy’s feelings -- but too terrified to actually follow through on finding out for sure. He went back to scanning the crowd, peering under the brims of hats and analysing the backs of jackets. 

Thomas was so busy keeping track of the people on board, he forgot to keep an eye on those who were preparing to disembark. Out of his field of vision, the gangplanks had been deployed, and the crew had started allowing passengers to leave. Jimmy was leaning over the rail, shading his vantage with a stiff hand against his forehead. Then he let out an unexpected yelp, clamouring loudly above the crowd: “The hell? Look where you’re --!” 

Alarmed, Thomas twisted around in time to catch sight of Felix, who had been running so quickly towards the gangway, he had smashed right into Jimmy. The impact dizzied Jimmy for a moment, making him oblivious to his surroundings, but Thomas was certain he’d glimpsed a sparkle of gold and jade pop out of a pocket in Felix’s waistcoat as they stumbled back from one another. At once, he tried to alert Jimmy, who was still dazed from the collision: “Dammit, he’s  _ got  _ it! Right there! There!” He was already trying to push his way through the stream of exiting passengers that separated him from his blond companion, though a passing terrier on a leash proved an effective obstacle, tripping Thomas up in an embarrassingly ungraceful manner. 

Quicker to regain his balance, Felix realised just  _ whom  _ he’d crashed into, and that his secret was out -- which sent him into a panic. Clutching his head, Jimmy dimly became aware of two things happening at once: the first was that Thomas was yelling again, this time with concern about Felix escaping; the other was the elbow that Felix was throwing straight into Jimmy’s solar plexus as he suddenly broke into a frenzied run. 

By the time Thomas had managed to extricate himself from the terrier’s lead, tossing a careless apology at the dog’s owner as he hurried to Jimmy’s side, Felix was already bumbling hurriedly towards the gangplank. Jimmy was still holding his head, blinking hazily into the glaring Spanish sun, and it took every ounce of Thomas’s willpower to keep from laying a concerned flurry of fingers and thumbs upon the blond to help reorient him. Instead, he settled for repeating with urgency, “Jimmy, I saw it. We’ve got to get a move on!” 

Jimmy nodded dumbly, groping for Thomas with a blind hand, which fell heavily on Thomas’s shoulder. Though the support seemed to help Jimmy immensely, Thomas was sent into a shock, reeling at Jimmy’s repeated little touches. Despite the intensity of the situation, all Thomas was suddenly able to think about was whether or not Jimmy’s shift in familiarity  _ meant  _ something -- or at least how it fit in with Jimmy’s safeguarded personal space. But just as he was starting to unravel the nuances of it, Jimmy’s hand was gone, and Thomas was left standing by himself as Jimmy suddenly powered on ahead, calling to Thomas, “Hurry,  _ hurry _ !” 

Felix was just clearing the deck, rudely pushing through the leisurely stroll of the other passengers that were casually disembarking. A lady yelped in shock as her wide-brimmed hat was knocked clear off her auburn hair, which was followed by the irritated grievances of her gentleman as Felix nosed his way between them. Thomas and Jimmy stumbled in Felix’s wake, no less proper in their rush to catch up with the elderly man. By the time he reached the gangplank, they were 20 yards behind -- the distance grew as he scuttled down the less densely packed area. Thomas and Jimmy were still being delayed by the swathe of passengers who were oblivious to the stakes.

“Don’t lose him -- !” Thomas shouted to Jimmy vaguely, leaping up onto the gangplank as he watched Felix hurrying through the throng on the land side of it. Felix rapidly covered the open area of the dockside, dodging a few assorted crates and long coils of thick rope. He headed for a side street. Thomas fought to keep his eyes on Felix. Jimmy was right there with him and they made landfall in the same step.

As they ran through the Romanesque streets, there was barely time to admire -- much less process -- the cathedrals and medieval remnants that gave Barcelona is character, but Thomas and Jimmy were catching up with Felix, so the architecture whizzed by, unnoticed. It wasn’t until Jimmy managed to forge ahead, yelling, “Come  _ on _ !” that Thomas realised Jimmy was tugging on his hand.

Just five yards between them. The two of them were younger and fitter than Felix; they were closing the distance more quickly as Felix began to tire. Jimmy started chuntering, “Come here, you goddamn -- bloody --” He was still a step or two in front of Thomas, and had let go of his hand to run faster. As Felix began to turn a corner, Jimmy suddenly launched at him. He collided at about the level of Felix’s knees, and the two of them hit the ground together. Thomas skidded to a halt in time to avoid it becoming a pile-up and moved around to the front to keep Felix sort-of surrounded. All three of them were breathing heavily.

“Oww,” Jimmy whined from the heap.

“Well done, Jimmy,” Thomas praised him.

“I tripped up,” Jimmy said sulkily as he sat up. “My bloody ankle is  _ killin’ _ .” He landed a half-hearted punch on Felix’s back in petty retaliation, before standing up, leaning one hand heavily on Thomas’s shoulder for balance. He lifted his left foot and rubbed his ankle with a grimace, while Thomas fought the desire to put a supportive arm around him.

“I say, there must be some kind of misunderstanding, what?” Felix said shakily as he righted himself. He stayed sitting on the floor, looking dazed.

“I’ll give you a fuckin’ misunderstanding,” Jimmy muttered darkly.

“You’ve taken a necklace that belongs to us,” Thomas said. “Naturally, we want it  _ back _ .”

“I don’t know anything about a necklace,” Felix tried.

Thomas and Jimmy advanced on him. They were perhaps not as threatening as they could have been, given that Jimmy hopped. That misconception quickly dissipated when Thomas got close enough to Felix to crouch down and plant a heavy hand against Felix’s chest. He gave him a rough shove and then used the resulting unsteadiness to rifle through the older man’s waistcoat. He yanked out a watch and pulled it off its chain in desperate annoyance, and then dipped his fingers into Felix’s other pocket. The touch of smooth stone slid beneath his fingertips; Thomas removed the necklace and held it aloft, its decorative jade flowers and dangling pearls gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. “You mean  _ this  _ necklace?” Thomas sneered unsympathetically. 

“Never seen it before in my life,” said Felix, who seemed determined to play innocent even in the face of guilt. 

“Ever seen a fist in your life?” Jimmy wanted to know, cracking his knuckles. 

“Please,” Felix said at once. “It’s not for my own benefit. It’s my little niece.”

“You ever stop to think that maybe we’ve got troubles of our own?” Jimmy was quick to retort, his voice standing a whole octave above his usual candor. He was still brandishing a threatening fist. He cast a series of glances at Thomas, almost as if he were trying to check that Thomas was still there. He seemed much braver with the knowledge that Thomas hadn’t abandoned him. 

“What could  _ possibly  _ be more important than the life of a child?” Felix snapped with sudden vehemence. 

Thomas gave Felix another rough shove in response, and pointedly slid the necklace into his own pocket. “You’ll be lucky if we don’t report you for stealin’,” Thomas said as he backed off of Felix and moved to stand almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Jimmy. He told himself it was an act of solidarity, though his heart rate had other opinions. 

“Not if I get to it first!” Felix shouted, almost as if he’d just suddenly been struck with inspiration. “You think I’m so stupid that I’d think a pair of lads would just  _ happen  _ to have such a nice piece of jewellery? I know your sort. You get a few quid and you suddenly think rubbing your pennies together makes you a hot item.” 

“And we’ve got the papers that say otherwise,” Thomas rejoined crisply. Lady A’s forgeries were at least good enough to keep someone like Felix off the scent, which only made him more confident. He tossed his head in the direction of the port, indicating to Jimmy that they best be on their way, and turned to go. “ _ Don’t  _ try and follow us,” he derided at Felix, casting a judgmental look down his cheek. 

Thomas had only taken a few steps when he realised that Jimmy wasn’t at his side. The discovery came just as Jimmy’s voice clamoured from behind: “A hand, Thomas?” 

Thomas pivoted on his heel to find Jimmy a few paces back, very noticeably favouring his left foot over the other. Thomas arched a quizzical eyebrow at Jimmy, a little disarmed to see the blond so open about a weakness. That seemed like a fresh development in their relationship, he thought as he returned to Jimmy’s side and threw Jimmy’s arm over his shoulders. He didn’t care that their exit was probably the most unimpressive in the history of the world. Their bodies were pressed together all down the side, jostling as Jimmy took uneven steps and hops.

With the anxiety of the missing necklace resolved, Thomas and Jimmy found the city of Barcelona a lot more picturesque than it had been before. Thomas made a mental note to check Jimmy’s ankle for swelling if he was still complaining of pain later on, but for now Jimmy was once again in search of food. After dragging him on a short exploration of the city, Thomas helped him to a cafe near the port, where they had a quick snack of olives and sheep’s cheese.

“Shame the little lady won’t get a taste of this,” Jimmy said insincerely as he munched happily on a stuffed green olive. His lips glistened with oil.

“We could always take her some,” Thomas suggested, straight-faced.

Jimmy narrowed his eyes at Thomas for a split second, before breaking into a grin as he realised that Thomas was joking. He laughed and popped three more olives into his mouth at once, almost as if he was doing it out of spite. Still, Thomas was glad to see Jimmy in better spirits. 

“It’s good to know we’ve got it back,” Thomas observed, reflexively patting the necklace in his waistcoat pocket.

“We’ve got to be more careful,” Jimmy decided as he sucked a soft wedge of cheese off his fingers, much to Thomas’s unending torture. “I can’t take much more excitement like that, me.” 

“You sure?” Thomas smirked, though the comment didn’t do much to help distract him.

Jimmy said nothing, though his cheeks seemed a bit pink. Thomas supposed it was the shifting sunlight as the day waned. Or so he doggedly forced himself to believe. 

“It’s probably time we get going,” he suggested. “Sun’s on its way down, and the ship’s going to put out soon.” He stood, and Jimmy bounced up after him. With the necklace back in their possession, the rest of the trip should be a lot more relaxing, but there was a long way to go yet.

They were halfway back to the ship before Thomas remembered Jimmy’s injury. “Oh -- is your ankle feeling better now?”

A sharp intake of breath filled Jimmy, who then coughed. “Amazin’ what a little food’ll do for the body,” he told Thomas very candidly, though he kept his focus honed on the street in front of them. 

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed quietly. He looked at Jimmy beside him in the late afternoon sunlight, with streaks of copper and rose caressing his hair. “Amazin’.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Link is very aware that a regatta is a boat race, but she felt it was an appropriate title for the conclusion of the necklace incident because of Poirot and diamond thievery that at least took place ON a boat. Or something. 
> 
> Sadly, Link and Laramie have kind of caught up to where they are in the writing because #life, so they've decided that this might be a good place to take a little breather while they churn out some more. Enjoy their other fics in the meantime!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something about the way Thomas was looking at him prodded Jimmy into suddenly blurting, “Can I have a hug?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, anyone who might still be interested in reading this! So, um, it's been a while. Link & I got kind of outrageously busy and could never quite find time to write, let alone write together, so this fic was neglected for a while.
> 
> We have actually written the vast majority of this fic (we got ahead of ourselves a bit so that we knew we would be able to go back to posting regularly when we were ready) - and I (Laramie aka starrythomas on tumblr) am going to finish off the tidying-up bit at the end, so I thought the time had finally come to finish publishing! Hope you enjoy!

It was ridiculous to think that a few Spanish olives could totally reinvigorate a person’s attitude, but since the stopover in Barcelona, Jimmy had become much less gloomy. Certainly the recovery of the necklace factored into that, as well as the hearty bon voyage they’d served Felix when they’d taken it back, but Jimmy had become almost unmatchably _cheerful_ since then. Granted, there was nothing but leagues of sea in every direction, which gave the added relief that Lady Anstruther had no easy avenue of escape -- at least, not until they reached their next port of call, which was in Bombay. Jimmy reminded Thomas at almost every possible moment that they were going to _India_ , and then would ask a hundred questions about what it would be like -- was the food tasty, how did they dress there, what exactly _was_ a sari, what were some local customs, why was everything so _colourful_ there, what else did Thomas know about India -- and on and on. Thomas humoured him about half the time; other times, he would sharply remind Jimmy that he was trying to _read_.

“Should’ve never bought you that bloody Poirot story,” Jimmy would complain whenever Thomas prioritised his new mystery novel over conversation, though he secretly found it sort of charming how engrossed Thomas was whenever he cracked the book open. As they’d been strolling through Barcelona’s port, he’d thought it a fitting reward for all the help Thomas had provided in solving the Case of the Vanishing Jade Necklace, though Thomas had protested he couldn’t keep accepting such frivolous, expensive gifts from Jimmy. But Jimmy bought it anyway and had practically forced it upon Thomas, who somehow became a lot less obstinate once the money was spent and Jimmy was physically pushing it into his hands.

“You can read it when I’m done,” Thomas usually told him, barely looking up from the printed words.

“It’d be faster if you read it _to_ me,” Jimmy would routinely say.

“How slowly do you read?” Thomas asked, raising an eyebrow.

Jimmy became indignant and huffed, “I’m just sayin’, why read it twice when we could kill two birds with one stone, that’s all.”

“Patience, _James_ ,” smirked Thomas.  

One blue afternoon, Jimmy was reclining on a lounge chair amidships. On his right was Thomas, who was still glued to his book and mostly untalkative as he neared the end; on the other side was Lady A. She had nothing to read, which made her painfully chatty. Jimmy was attempting to feign napping, his derby pulled low over his eyes, but his constant fidgeting gave him away. Unfortunately, Lady A seemed to be just as aware of his little habits and tells as Thomas was.

“You know, love,” Lady Anstruther was saying, persisting in using the pet name Jimmy had explicitly forbidden the use of; “I sometimes get the impression you rather _like_ having me along. This trip is a lot less despicable than you had me worried it would turn out to be. I think I’m quite enjoying myself, aren’t you?”

“I _was_ ,” Jimmy groused, his eyes trained towards Thomas. He thought he might at least _pretend_ to read over his shoulder.

“You’ll enjoy it far more if you loosen up a bit,” Anstruther retorted. She seemed at last to be losing patience with his surly attitude towards her.

Jimmy was quick to react, gripping the arm of his chair as he leaned over in her direction to hiss, “If you think that means I ought to go tumblin’ into your bunk, you got another think comin’. Not even _I’m_ that desperate. I’m a grown man these days -- in case you didn’t notice.”

Anstruther gave a smug little smile as her eyes travelled from the tip of Jimmy’s nose to somewhere around his knees. “I never even suggested it. And yet you thought of it.”

“Don’t pretend. I know you,” Jimmy grumbled, annoyed that she still managed to turn everything backwards. “You did your damage.”

“Oh, hush,” she said carelessly, waving a casual hand as if to swat away his words. She truly didn’t seem to have any understanding of what she had done to Jimmy. “You can send every girl you’ve known in the meantime to me. They’ll want to _thank_ me.”

“Thank you for _what_ ?” Jimmy snapped without much care for discretion. Her unimportance about the whole thing -- like it _wasn’t such a big deal_ \-- had triggered a cloud of red vision. “You mean the fact that I get so embarrassingly _nervous_ round girls, I usually just end up lookin’ a fool? ‘Cause I don’t know how to be or what to say? Buy ‘em gifts and things, and you’ll have ‘em eatin’ out your palm. Fun fact: it don’t work so nice. And it’s put me off the whole thing, _thanks very much_ , m’lady.”

The sound of a book being snapped closed punctuated Jimmy’s tirade, and he abruptly silenced himself, his rant caught in his throat as he became painfully aware of how dangerously open he had become. He glanced back to his right, where Thomas was sitting, watching him with an almost alarmingly still stare. Thomas seemed particularly bothered by the direction the discussion had taken -- which Jimmy could tell by how quiet he remained despite the halt in conversation. His only reaction to Jimmy’s sudden attention was a slight tilt of his head, which Jimmy fancied was his silent way of asking whether Jimmy was alright. Jimmy wasn’t sure if it was safer to respond -- or to keep his traitorous mouth clamped shut: the last thing he needed was for Thomas to worry any more than he already did.

An aristocratic upbringing had bred Lady Anstruther into an excellent liar, any of her internal musings completely hidden behind the unimportant expression on her face. She made a show of adjusting her hat, which was a simple cloche with a black band and a brass buckle, and smoothing her carefully arranged hair. As if her personal appearance was far more important than her words, she offhandedly commented, “Oh, Jimmy, don’t be so ungrateful. It’s not fetching for someone as pretty as you. Which, unfortunately, isn’t enough to keep a lady pleased.” She pinned him with a rather hard stare, her rosebud mouth twisted in a way that gave Jimmy chills; “I suppose it makes sense, now that you mention it, dear. You _were_ a bit clumsy about it the last time I saw you.”

Jimmy glowered at the deck, for once stuck for what to say. His molars ached, he was clenching his jaw shut so hard. Then a flurry of movement to his right caught his attention; Thomas was leaning on the side of the chair, bending towards Jimmy and Lady A. He was glaring at her with such ferocity that Jimmy, instantly and inexplicably, felt safer. “You don’t have a right to _any_ kind of opinion about Jimmy,” he snarled. “You lost that privilege the moment you forced him into your bed. Keep your damn mouth shut or jump off the side of the ship, I don’t care which.”

“Force is such a _strong_ word. Nothing took place which anyone involved wasn’t fully interested in,” Lady A sniffed derisively, very obviously speaking down to Thomas. “Not that it’s for the likes of _you_ to be bothered about. Servants should remember who their betters are -- and mind their place.”

Thomas’s voice dropped to a low, dangerous tone. “Neither of us are servants any more. So maybe the likes of _you_ should remember who _your_ betters are. Without people like me and Jimmy, you’d be nothing.” He glanced at Jimmy in solidarity, and Jimmy found himself momentarily caught by the intensity in Thomas’s eyes.

The salty sea air filled his lungs as Jimmy sucked in a breath and forced his attention back to Lady A. He exhaled a facade of confidence, which was mostly enforced by the knowledge that Thomas was behind him, and said something he’d wanted to tell Lady A since he’d fled her service. “Not that you’d understand what it’s like to be one of our lot,” he said; “When sayin’ _no_ can literally be the most dangerous thing to do.”

“You said no when I wanted to go to France,” Lady A shrugged, clearly not able to empathise with the sentiment even a little.

“And I had to lose me job for sayin’ so!” Jimmy practically screeched, his nerves growing rattled.

“There are other jobs in the world, Jimmy,” said Anstruther, as though she was explaining something to a five-year-old.

“Have you ever had to _look_ for a job?” Thomas put in. “Ever worked for anything, a day in your life?”

Anstruther fussed with her cloche hat again, clearly more worried about whether or not it was sitting properly over her ears. “As a matter of fact, it may come as a surprise to you, _Barrow_ , that being a fine, upstanding lady requires a lot more effort than just nibbling on the occasional biscuit,” she said, not even dignifying Thomas with eye contact as she twisted her head back and forth, the curl of her hair again her primary concern. “A lady needs to be a paragon for her community and must help with the management of the affairs of the house. Even _more_ so when a lady is left a widow, and every shilling becomes of vital concern.” She shot Thomas a particularly derisive look that annoyed Jimmy even more than anything else she had done that day; “Shillings that come out as wages for -- what was it you said? Ah -- _your lot_.”

“Me life’s earnings in your employ probably still cost less than that _necklace_ of yours,” Jimmy was quick to interject, growing increasingly bitter. He desperately wanted to remind Lady Anstruther that _he_ was the one in control.

“Oh? You think so?” Lady A wondered placidly.

“We _know_ it is,” Thomas responded pointedly, but Lady Anstruther didn’t seem to catch the significance of his words.

She lifted her shoulders elegantly. “It’s worthless to you if you can’t sell it -- and you can’t. You need _papers_ for jewellery like that, not that you’d know anything about it.”

Thomas smiled, like a shark before a kill. “A certificate of authenticity and an appraisal. Signed, of course, by both the appraiser, and his _retainer_ .” He laid a gentle emphasis on the word, and the smug look dropped off Lady Anstruther’s face. “Well, I’m sure we could manage that, _Betty_.”

Anstruther seemed to be struggling to regain her equilibrium after Thomas had wrongfooted her. Since he hadn’t quite come out and said anything about her forgeries, it would be unwise of her to be the one to bring it up. However, she must have _known_ that the two of them had worked it out. After a noticeably long silence, the best she had to say was, “So _you’re_ the one who’s been poking through my things.” She scoffed, clearly agitated, “I can’t believe I even wondered about it. Of course it was.”

Thomas’s vowels stretched into his natural accent as he taunted, “You can’t have expected us to let you run about unsupervised.”

Caught between Lady A and Thomas as their fiery debate grew more and more vehement, Jimmy felt so frazzled, he wasn’t sure he could properly sense any of his extremities. It was a rather nerve wracking sensation, almost as if he was rowing hard against a current that kept throwing him from side to side. At once, the need to ground himself became the most important thing, which swished through him like seasickness. Tapping the hand nearest Thomas against the armrest of his chair, he attempted to flag Thomas’s attention, clamouring fretfully, “I’m hungry, Thomas. I’d really like to go for tea.”

Thomas looked at him, and seemed to see through him instantly, detecting the nervousness hidden behind his eyes with ease. His face softened. “Alright,” he agreed, his voice far more gentle than it had been ever since this whole argument had begun. “Let’s go and find something.” Jimmy scrambled to follow as Thomas picked up his book and draped his coat over one arm. Jimmy didn’t dare to look back at Anstruther, but he was pretty sure he could feel her gaze burning angrily into him -- like a leash he couldn’t properly shake free of.

\--

Jimmy had detoured to the dining cabin on their way back to their bunk so that he could purchase a tea service large enough for four. Like a man on a mission, Jimmy doggedly wielded the laden tray, while Thomas helpfully followed behind with a cigarette in one hand and a half-full teacup in the other, which he brought to his lips with alternating regularity. Jimmy could hear him slurping the tea, but it was oddly soothing while they walked back. He counted the portholes on their way, an attempt to regulate his surging mood.

After waiting for Thomas to open the door and lift up the writing desk’s lid, Jimmy laid the tray down at last and they remained standing to spread jam and cream onto their dainty scones. They bickered good-naturedly about whether the jam or the cream should be spread on first; Thomas maintained that it should be the cream, while Jimmy argued that it should be the jam. While the distraction was helping, Jimmy still felt jumpy and oddly disconnected from his surroundings. His first act after emptying his hands of the cream tea had been to lock their door, but he still half-expected Lady A to barge in at any moment.

Jimmy licked his lips clean of clotted cream and watched Thomas pouring himself another cup of tea. He thought he ought to ask Thomas for a warm-up of his own, noting how steady Thomas’s hands were when he tilted the teapot -- as opposed to Jimmy, who had nearly rattled the lid right off of it when he’d attempted to do the same. But it embarrassed him to admit that he needed help of any kind, so he reached for another scone -- only to find an empty plate. Somehow, they’d managed to plow through eight scones already, though Jimmy was pretty sure he’d only seen Thomas eat one and a half. He wiped his hands on his waistcoat, fraught with anxiety. His head was ringing with things he wanted to say, but his mouth seemed incapable of cooperating.

Thomas removed the strainer from his cup and went to take a sip. Over the rim, he noticed Jimmy staring and arched an eyebrow.

Something about the way Thomas was looking at him prodded Jimmy into suddenly blurting, “Can I have a hug?”

Thomas’s expression suddenly switched to a startled one. His hand jerked as he tried to right the teacup that had begun dripping onto his two-tone oxfords. “I -- You -- F-From _me_?”

Momentarily detained as he mentally beat himself up for such a thoughtless slip of the tongue, Jimmy tried to save face with a joke. “Uhh, ‘course I mean you,” he said with a comical glance around the room. “Don’t see anyone else here. And I’m not sure the teapot’s a very good hugger. And I…” He trailed off, his chin drifting up towards the ceiling as he murmured, “I could really use one.”

“Didn’t think you’d -- ahh -- care for that sort of thing?” Thomas protested feebly, though it was hard to say if his uncertainty had to do with his knowledge of Jimmy’s haphephobia, or something of a more personal nature. But Jimmy was unwavering, his eyes never leaving Thomas as he waited.    

After another moment’s hesitation, Thomas closed the gap between them and stood stiffly in front of Jimmy. He seemed unwilling to go any further, so it was down to Jimmy to wrap his arms around the other man’s torso. He felt Thomas’s arms come up in turn, but it seemed as though he wasn’t making contact with Jimmy below his elbows. Jimmy pressed closer to him and demanded, “ _Properly_.”

Slowly, he felt Thomas’s palms flatten against the small of his back, and Jimmy was surrounded by him. Jimmy squinted his eyes and pressed his cheek against the wool of Thomas’s waistcoat. Beneath the fabric, Thomas’s firm chest trembled with his pulse, his warm belly pressed against Jimmy’s with steadying breaths. Jimmy’s hair was tossed with the softness of Thomas’s voice as he asked, “Like this?”

Jimmy merely squeezed him tighter, and Thomas seemed to understand. For a few precious moments, Jimmy breathed smoke and sandalwood, and finally felt alive again. His feet were fixed solidly on the wooden floor of their cabin, and instead of floating untethered through the air, his body was contained and defined.

“Sorry,” Jimmy mumbled into Thomas’s waistcoat. “Today just put me out of sorts.”

“M-Maybe I could read to you for a bit,” Thomas blurted out.

The suggestion was an instant hit with Jimmy, who disengaged himself from Thomas so that he could display his pleased grin. “Ta, Thomas!” he exclaimed, pulling his hands away so that he could rub them together. “Just the ticket to forget such a rotten morning.” He immediately grabbed the desk chair and dragged it over to the bunk, where he abandoned it in favour of clambering onto Thomas’s berth. He scooted against the headboard and plucked up Thomas’s pillow, squishing it into his lap as he waited.

Thomas retrieved the copy of _Poirot Investigates,_ which Jimmy had purchased for him. He flipped through it aimlessly as he perched on the desk chair Jimmy had abandoned. Jimmy knew that Thomas was near to the end of the book, but he eventually smoothed it open a few dozen pages from the start.

“Ain’t you readin’ me the beginnin’?”

“It’s an anthology,” Thomas explained, tipping the book towards him even though he was too far away to be able to read it. “This one’s called _The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor_.”

“Oh,” hummed Jimmy. Thomas opened his mouth to begin, but Jimmy had another question. “Do I have to know anythin’ about this Poirot bloke?”

“He’s a little Belgian man with dark hair, a Dr. Clarkson moustache and a Bates limp,” Thomas summarised. “He solves crimes, but I think you knew that. The rest, you’ll pick up as we go.”

“I can’t wait,” said Jimmy, who was making himself even more comfortable on Thomas’s bunk.

Thomas cleared his throat. “ _I had been called away from town for a few days, and on my return found Poirot in the act of strapping up his small valise._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It would be SUPER helpful if you dropped me a little comment to help motivate me to get this finished! Doesn't have to be fancy, you can just say "still reading" and that would help me enormously.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys go for a swim. Thomas despairs at how good Jimmy looks. Who knows _what_ Jimmy's thinking. And Thomas finds a mysterious letter.

“Wouldn’t mind a little poolside reading,” Thomas mused, watching the light on the ceiling that had been reflected from the shimmering water. The two of them were lounging on deckchairs that capped the short end of the ship’s indoor pool, which was available to both first and second class passengers. Lady A was with them, though she was currently over on the other side of the small atrium, talking to some bloke Thomas didn’t know. Her shrill laugh bounced unpleasantly throughout the chamber far too frequently for Thomas’s liking. 

“No  _ Poirot _ to distract you,” Jimmy observed, the name sounding a little strange on his lips. “I’ll have to decide if I ought get you another one of those books.”

Thomas warmed at the thought of Jimmy wanting to give him a present, even though he didn’t like the idea of Jimmy lavishing money on him. “You don’t have to,” he protested half-heartedly.

Jimmy just shrugged, as though he couldn’t be bothered to argue the point. Like Thomas, he had his suit jacket draped over his shoulders, hanging loosely over the ribbed cotton top of his swimming costume, which was of a more modern, athletic design than Thomas’s own woollen affair. The form-fitting cut of the swimsuit’s lower half left most of his legs bare, which had given Thomas quite the shock when Jimmy had first appeared in it. It had been one of the things that Jimmy had shoved into his case on his own, and Thomas cursed himself for not automatically assuming that Jimmy would have owned a fashionable,  _ head-turning _ one. Thomas tried not to look, but the more he told himself he shouldn’t, the more he found his eyes drawn to Jimmy’s bony knees and muscular calves, and kept having to tear his gaze away again as though nothing was amiss. As though Jimmy’s bare skin just  _ happened _ to be passing under his eyes through no fault of his own. As far as he could tell, Jimmy hadn’t noticed his frequent glances.

Once again, he doggedly forced himself to look ahead, ostensibly watching Lady A as she cosied up to the gentleman who had just exited one of the changing cubicles across the way. Thomas had finished the Poirot anthology a few weeks ago, and the gap it had left was horrendously noticeable, easily filled with the rosy streaks in Jimmy’s hair when they’d stood together in Barcelona. After the argument between Jimmy and Lady A, the dowager had been frosty for almost two days. Despite that, Jimmy had relaxed considerably since then -- since that evening with the confrontation and the  _ hug _ and the tea service big enough for four. Perhaps it was the knowledge of the long trip they had to make between Spain and the rapidly nearing port of Bombay; it meant that there had been quite a while until they needed to give much thought to the danger of her making a run for it.

Today, however, Jimmy seemed anxious again. Thomas wasn’t sure whether that had more to do with Lady A’s state of undress, or Jimmy’s own. He had observed the rather decadent way Lady A had been carrying herself around Jimmy, which only made Thomas suspicious. He knew that Lady A had a vaguely sociopathic air to her when it came to Jimmy, but it gave him chills when he thought that the dowager might have rekindled her quest for his attention. He remembered the shameless way she had behaved that fateful night at the Abbey, though he remembered even more so the terrible effect it had on Jimmy -- who had become a tense ball of nerves the entire time she had been underfoot. He didn’t consider it farfetched that Lady A might have picked up right where she left off, an uncomfortable notion that reminded Thomas of the fox hunts that Downton had been so famous for. 

He decided he ought to flush out his head with a quick lap or two in the pool. Leaving Jimmy to brood, he got to his feet to pad towards the deeper end of the narrow basin. After a self-conscious glance around him, paranoid that everyone would be staring at his scars, he sucked in a brave lungful of air, slipped the jacket off and immediately dove into the water headfirst. He left barely a splash as his toes slid beneath the gently undulated waves, gliding nearly half the length of the pool before he broke the surface again. Gasping, he swung his powerful arms up and over, piercing the warm saltwater as he catapulted back underneath. The subaqueous din that filled his ears drowned out all the troubles above, a peaceful respite he wasn’t about to squander.

Several laps of the pool later, Thomas hoisted himself over the ledge and back onto the tiled floor once more. He hurried to tug his jacket back on, though it felt strange to do so, especially as it adhered to his wet skin, and squeezed the water out of his hair. Still dripping, he then made his way back to the small cluster of deckchairs, where he’d left a towel.

As he started to dry himself off, starting first with his hair and then slowly working his way downwards, he couldn’t help but notice that Jimmy seemed to have become even  _ more  _ tense than he’d been before. Thomas’s forehead creased with concern as he rubbed down his legs, and then attempted to pat dry the front of his woollen bathing costume as best he could through the opening of his jacket. His arms and back would just have to dry themselves, in time, as he couldn’t reach them underneath the jacket.

Jimmy’s attention was very pointedly fixed on the pool, like he was trying to drown himself without moving; Thomas followed his line of sight and found himself looking at Lady Anstruther’s swimming boots. He frowned, realising that something must have happened while he had been swallowed beneath the waves. The concern was only made more prominent as he wrapped his towel around his waist and met Lady A’s stare from across the way: she was glowering at him like she’d find great satisfaction in holding his head underwater.

Smoothing his damp hair across his scalp, Thomas returned his attention to Jimmy, who was now frowning down at his folded arms. He’d scrunched his legs up so that his knees were blocking half his face, but Thomas didn’t need to see his expression to know it was a strained one. Thomas sat down next to Jimmy and asked quietly, “Are you alright?”

Jimmy touched his forehead to his knees, squinting his eyes as he ground out, “Never better.” 

“Did something happen?” Thomas pressed.

“Define  _ somethin’ _ ,” Jimmy said unhelpfully. His folded posture made him look like a small child, and it instilled an almost protective instinct within Thomas.  

“Something to make you nervous.” Thomas hoped he wouldn’t be pushing too far with that remark; Jimmy could be obstinate at the best of times.

“I-I’m not nervous!” Jimmy protested in a way that sounded very unconvincing. He peeked up at Thomas from behind the barrier of his knees, adding in a more quiet tone, “Just had a reminder of somethin’ I weren’t goin’ to let bother me anymore, that’s all. It’s me own trouble -- don’t worry about it.” 

Thomas tapped his fingers on the side of his chair as he considered what to say. “Well, you don’t have to tell me, but a trouble shared is a trouble halved, an’ all that.” As he spoke, his gaze roamed the room, trying to find some clue as to what had got Jimmy in a tizzy. His eye caught on Anstruther’s coat, which was left abandoned on the deckchair on Jimmy’s other side. There was what looked like a piece of card sticking out of a pocket. Anstruther looked engaged in conversation, so Thomas went over and pulled the card out, taking what turned out to be a telegram back to his seat.

“What’s that?” Jimmy asked.

Thomas couldn’t make any sense of it; it just looked like random words grouped together. He showed it to Jimmy:

_ 10 START OFF (STOP)  _

_ My taste evolves each time tea is sugar no cream (STOP) Starting it about now amore so I bid you a gay journey (STOP) I hope no crudeness pains this bit at sea (STOP) _

Jimmy just shrugged carelessly, so Thomas stowed the telegram safely in his pocket to peruse in private later.

Anstruther was now making her way back to them with a calculating expression. “Is this a private party, gentlemen?” she asked as she rounded the corner of the pool and neared Thomas and Jimmy. There wasn’t even an attempt at friendliness in her tone, especially when she cast her glare on Thomas. 

“Maybe it is!” Jimmy suddenly snapped, his volume enough to startle even Thomas. Then Jimmy went back to sulking, adding with a more morose attitude, “What happened to Whatshisface over there? His cologne not expensive enough for you or somethin’?” 

“It all seemed much more interesting over here,” Anstruther responded.

“You didn’t think that earlier, when that posh bloke came in for a dip,” Jimmy snapped in reference to the man Lady Anstruther had been trying to sink her hooks into. Thomas speculated she was attempting to make Jimmy jealous by lavishing her attention on someone else. Though Thomas knew otherwise, the way Jimmy was acting rather made it look as though it had worked.

The unexpected touch of Lady Anstruther’s bony fingers on Thomas’s shoulder made him start. He held his breath, expecting her to shift him out of the way, but she only curled her grip into his shoulder more tightly, her nails digging into the gap between his collarbone and ribs. He swallowed a hiss of pain, though his voice was tight as he let out a very stiff, “Excuse me.” 

“You’re quite a graceful swimmer,” she drawled, affording Thomas a compliment that stank of superficiality. 

“What’re you playing at?” Thomas frowned.

The saccharine way Lady Anstruther feigned hurt was almost too much, and Thomas had to fight to hold his tongue. He thought he had been doing a rather fair job of keeping the peace, and glanced over at Jimmy in hopes that his efforts might have helped abate Jimmy’s dour mood. Instead, he was met with a vehemence that seemed to have consumed Jimmy’s entire aura -- a reversal in attitude that was so distinct, it struck Thomas almost violently. He’d only seen such a horrifyingly ugly look on Jimmy’s face one other time -- though that particular incident was one he made grand efforts to forget as much as possible. 

“Don’t you goddamn dare,” Jimmy spat at Lady A, gripping the arms of his chair like he meant to launch himself out of it. Thomas swallowed at the sight, unable to keep himself from noticing how Jimmy’s swimsuit accentuated his tense frame. Though Jimmy’s protectiveness seemed unnecessary, it was charming all the same. “Thomas hasn’t got time for the likes of -- of  _ you _ !”

Anstruther’s eyes narrowed. “Then what does he have time for? You?”

Jimmy became too flustered to come up with an appropriate response, though he did lurch forward in his chair like he might pop to his feet on a whim. His eyebrows were knotted angrily over his nose, his cheeks so pink, Thomas wondered if they’d burn his fingers to touch.

The reaction incited a dangerous sort of change in Lady A, who suddenly reminded Thomas of a cat with a mouse. Speaking down at Jimmy as if she were scolding a schoolboy, she said, “I don’t see your name on him,  _ James _ . Didn’t you ever learn to share?” 

“He’s not a thing!” Jimmy yelped so loudly, the echo of his voice reverberated throughout the pool area for a full two seconds after he’d shouted it. By this point, Jimmy had slid to the edge of his chair, even though neither Lady A nor Thomas had moved an inch. Still, the blond somehow seemed to think he had to save face, and was soon babbling in the wake of his explosion, “That is, he’s  _ my  _ friend -- and I think I know him a sight better’n you!” 

Thomas chose that moment to lift her hand delicately off his shoulder; she went easily, perhaps feeling that her mischief had already been wrought. Jimmy scooted back on his chair as Thomas sat next to him, though he shot uneasy glances at Anstruther as she took up the seat on his other side. 

“Have it your way,” said Lady A as she settled in for a bit of relaxation. She was almost calculating as she closed her eyes and flexed her toes, “But he’s not your  _ exclusive  _ friend, you know. The man doesn’t belong to  _ you  _ either.” Then she cracked an eyelid and cast Thomas an appraising look that Thomas pointedly ignored. He wasn’t sure what she was trying to imply, but he didn’t care for it either way. 

\--

All through the afternoon, Thomas kept the mysterious telegram that he had taken from Lady A’s coat in his mind, trying to distract himself from the undercurrent of curiosity that being next to a barely-clothed Jimmy caused. Lady A didn’t really give them any time to look at the card, sitting with them almost the whole while and alternating between sardonic disinterest and occasionally an almost spookily intense focus. Eventually, Thomas got bored of sitting by the pool, and when he got up to leave, Jimmy followed. They changed into their normal clothes in adjoining cubicles, and Thomas was rather relieved to see the newly-dressed Jimmy when they emerged. It had been too tempting to  _ look _ while Jimmy had been in his swimming costume -- not that he had done any actual swimming. Mercifully.

Back in their room, after a hearty dinner, Thomas finally pulled the telegram out to re-examine. Jimmy sat on the floor with his back against Thomas’s bunk, idly flipping through the Poirot book. He glanced up as the card rustled its way out of Thomas’s pocket, but didn’t look particularly interested.

“It’s just some shit she’s writin’ to who-cares-who,” he drawled, his nose plunged in the book.

Thomas shrugged. “Might be important,” he suggested, though really he was just pleased by the idea of working out the secret code. It seemed a very Poirot-esque thing to do. The actual content of the missive interested him very little. “Since it’s written in code, an’ all.”

Poirot must have gotten stuck in Jimmy’s veins too, for the moment he heard the word  _ code _ , he snapped the book shut and perked up. Thomas thought if Jimmy had been a dog, he’d have a vigorously wagging tail, so palpable was his sudden excitement. Thomas wondered vaguely if he was in the process of creating a monster. 

“Who’d’ve thought she’d be clever enough to know anythin’ about that sort of thing?” Jimmy said, practically bounding across the floor so that he could take up residence beside the desk chair, where Thomas was perched. “Show me!” 

Thomas tilted the page a little towards Jimmy, who frowned at the garbled block of letters on the card, unable to make sense of the meaningless text. Thomas could feel the shift in Jimmy’s movement as the blond glanced at him, perhaps in search of some kind of clue. Instead, Jimmy just sighed, “Where’s Poirot when you need him?” 

“That’s not so fun,” Thomas said distractedly, accidentally revealing his main motive in attempting to decode the telegram. He pulled the page closer to his nose, as though that would somehow make their meaning more clear.

“I didn’t think Poirot was so blind,” Jimmy quipped drolly. 

Thomas shot him a quelling look but couldn’t help the smile that took over straight afterwards.

“C’mon. Let a real detective have a go,” Jimmy insisted, snatching at the card, which Thomas neatly pulled just out of his grasp. 

“And who says you’re a real detective?” Thomas teased, while Jimmy went around him to grab at the telegram again.

“Me!” Jimmy countered. His knee knocked Thomas’s as he passed by.

“Getting violent now,” Thomas joked. “I surrender!” He let Jimmy get ahold of the page. It wasn’t  _ Thomas’s _ fault that Jimmy was leaning close to take it, so it was alright to enjoy it, wasn’t it? Thomas looked up at Jimmy’s face and thought he felt electricity in the air.

“Don’t be coy. I know you like a little rough-housing now and again,” Jimmy sniggered, content with his prize. 

Thomas bit his lip to keep from responding, watching as Jimmy retreated to his spot on the floor with the telegram. Thomas’s heart was pounding ridiculously at the exchange, which had felt dangerously close to flirting. Jimmy seemed oblivious to any such notion, and was rolling across the floor more like a contented dog than someone who’d just been trying to make a pass. Thomas reminded himself very firmly that Jimmy did  _ not  _ have the same intentions.

“Wonder who Lady A’s got who’s so secret that she’s gotta use a letter scramble to talk to ‘im, eh?” was the best observation Jimmy had after about five minutes of staring at his page. He was thumping a foot against the floor in agitation. The bump of his sole filled the room like the ticking of a clock. 

“S’pose we’ll find out if we ever decode it,” Thomas answered, before yawning widely. The swimming had taken it out of him.

“Very clever,  _ Poirot _ ,” Jimmy said with a roll of his eyes. He seemed rather tense and keyed up, though his lazy sprawl suggested otherwise.

“Thank you,  _ Hastings _ ,” Thomas drawled tiredly.

Jimmy seemed particularly satisfied with the comment, and let the joke taper off. For his part, Thomas was just pleased Jimmy had allowed him the last word, which almost overshadowed how exhausted he was.  _ Almost _ . 

Rubbing his eyes, Thomas got to his feet. “I’m going to bed,” he announced. “We can look at this again in the morning; we’ve got plenty of time to kill.”

He went about his bedtime preparations, stripping off his clothes down to his long johns and undershirt. The undershirt was a short-sleeved one, which still caused him a blip of self-conscious panic, but he resolutely squashed the feeling as he went to wash at the basin. He was glad he couldn’t tell if Jimmy was watching him from his vantage in the mirror. 

By the time he’d finished washing, he turned to find Jimmy halfway through wrestling himself into a silk pyjama shirt, a dark green one that complimented his colouring a little too well for Thomas’s liking. He had already replaced his wool trousers for silken ones as well, his day clothes tangled in a haphazard nest beside him on the floor. Thomas had grown used to how quickly Jimmy could change, though a masochistic part of him still sometimes worried that Jimmy’s speed was rooted in a fear of Thomas’s preferences.

Thomas took a deep, calming breath. He suspected that he was worrying more than usual tonight because of his weariness. In an attempt to return to their easy banter, he nudged Jimmy’s shoulder, saying, “Shove over; I want to get to bed.”

Jimmy seemed a bit reluctant to move, but he acquiesced in the end. He trudged around to the foot of the bed and scrambled up to the upper berth with ease. Thomas bent to pick up Jimmy’s forgotten clothing, which he couldn’t bear to leave on the floor even though it wasn’t his own property. 

“Don’t you ever put anything away?” he said, acutely aware that his tone was a little too fondly exasperating. He hung the clothes properly in the wardrobe to keep them from getting creased, before turning back to his own bed and noticing that Jimmy had burrowed himself into the blankets face-first, just as he had done ever since that first night on board. At the time, he had supposed that Jimmy had bad sea legs or some other nervousness about their new arrangements, but there had been plenty of time for him to grow accustomed to any number of changes, which led Thomas to wonder if it had anything to do with their circumstance at all. 

“You’ll suffocate like that,” Thomas said, his voice still betraying more affection than he had intended. He rubbed his bare left forearm unconsciously and added bluntly, “How d’you sleep if you can’t breathe?”

The way Jimmy kicked one of his bare feet against the headboard seemed almost  _ annoyed  _ to Thomas, though Thomas blamed his fatigue for reading that much into it. But with an edge of guilt, he remembered the serene way Jimmy had looked when he’d crept into his dormitory that fateful night he’d tried to kiss him, and then began to panic inwardly that it was his own fault Jimmy had become such a defensive sleeper. If defense was even what it was. 

Thomas was just tall enough to be at eye-level with Jimmy’s mattress. Tentatively, he moved towards the foot of Jimmy’s bunk and carefully untucked the corner of blanket that was shoved between the footboard and the mattress, lifting it enough to peer into the darkness beneath. A sharp, blue glare pierced him from the shadows, startling Thomas with how quickly Jimmy’s mood seemed to have shifted. 

“Haven’t died yet,” Jimmy grumbled from beneath the blankets, his voice muffled and distant. “Put it back.” 

Thomas hesitated, before dropping the blanket over Jimmy’s head again, but he remained standing where he was. His curiosity had hardly been assuaged, but he wasn’t sure how to word another question about it without referencing  _ that night  _ when Thomas had taken a bath he never intended to rise from. In the end, he said warily, “Don’t tell me you’re  _ tryin’ _ to?” 

“I just might do. So what?” Jimmy’s contrary tone should have been warning sign enough to Thomas that he was approaching forbidden territory, but the callous dialogue concerned him. 

“Jimmy,” Thomas said more sternly, mustering all his strength to ignore the unpleasant memories that kept shoving their way back into his skull. “Is there somethin’ goin’ on? You’ve been sleeping like this for weeks, and it can’t be comfortable.”

Jimmy rolled over beneath the duvet, twisting it around his body as he flipped over to face the wall. His face was still draped beneath the blanket, but his back and half his pillow were now visible. He tugged at one corner of the blanket like he meant to try and shroud himself with it again, but also didn’t seem bothered enough to adjust his position any more. It was then that Thomas noticed that the second pillow belonging to Jimmy’s berth was clamped very possessively between his arm and his side. “Have you heard me complainin’?” Jimmy said to the inside of the duvet. “Leave it. I’m just fine, me.” 

“Yeah, you look it,” Thomas said, his frustration adding a bite of sarcasm to his response.

Suddenly, Jimmy snapped over, rolling himself even more tightly into his floral duvet, the pillow now trapped inside the wrap of his blanket. “Well, you should try it sometime,” Jimmy said with equal cynicism, a certain breed of nervousness very evident in his voice. “Keeps the bad stuff out.” 

The unexpectedly vulnerable comment gave Thomas pause. “Monsters and demons?” he suggested gently.

“And nasty dowagers, besides,” Jimmy added, still somehow managing to dance around the truth of it -- Thomas could tell. 

“Well, there’s no one here but me,” Thomas tried to reassure him, to which Jimmy wriggled thoughtfully in his blankets. 

“Exactly,” Jimmy mumbled, and Thomas felt as though he had been stabbed. 

“Sorry,” he said automatically, though he wasn’t sure what he was apologising for. Just for making Jimmy uncomfortable, really. “Maybe we should have got another room,” he suggested hollowly.

“If I wanted another room, I’d’ve sprung for one, alright?” Jimmy snapped so quickly, it was almost rude, and yet it made Thomas absurdly happy. “I -- I just don’t need you laughin’ at me ‘cause I can’t sleep properly, that’s all. S’not like I’m tryin’ to cause you trouble or nothin’.” Then in an almost inaudible voice, he added, “Promise.” 

“You’re not causing me any trouble,” Thomas said. “I just wor-- I -- I was wondering.” He tipped his head thoughtfully before asking, “Is there anythin’ I can do to help?”

The question caused Jimmy to turn back over, regarding Thomas again with a pensive expression that gave Thomas palpitations. Thomas had already come up with about four bad ideas to help Jimmy sleep better by the time Jimmy finally settled on asking, “D’ya mind if I try your bunk? I think it’s more comfortable -- prob’ly a crappier mattress up top or somethin’.” 

“So you’re condemning me to sleeplessness instead,” Thomas teased gently. Jimmy’s face began to fall, so he added quickly, “Of course you can, if you think it’ll help.”

Jimmy nodded eagerly and clambered out of bed, dragging the trailing duvet behind him like a damask tail. Once he had his bare feet on the floor, he looked down at them and wriggled his toes in the carpet. “Bloody floor’s probably more comfortable than that mattress,” he muttered. He squinted at it for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, sounding as though he had made a decision. “I bet the floor’s better than those bunk beds, if we put our blankets down.”

“ _ Our _ ?” Thomas repeated.

“Yeah,” Jimmy said again. “C’mon, I bet it’s more comfortable than your bed too.” There was a strange, determined glow in his eyes as he pinned Thomas with a look. “We should try it. No sense in us both sufferin’.”

Thomas cleared his throat. Then he swallowed, because he still had no idea what to say. Jimmy gave him a cheerfully innocent smile and stepped away to lay his duvet out on the floor next to their bunks. Thomas could only watch as Jimmy dragged all the pillows and Thomas’s duvet to join his own on the carpet. Flipping the corner up, Jimmy slid into the makeshift bed, promptly pulling one of his own pillows to his chest again but with a much more contented look on his face than previously.

“C’mon,” Jimmy pressed. “I was right: it’s much comfier.  _ And _ roomier.” He was so nonchalant about the whole idea that Thomas found himself slipping under the duvet without a single protest. It might have got awkward from there, but Jimmy just closed his eyes with a lift at the corners of his mouth. Thomas couldn’t help but stare at him for fully half a minute, watching him breathing, his second pillow tucked under his chin like a stuffed toy. Thomas’s eyelids felt as though they were propped open.

He must have drifted off at some point, however, as he started awake some unknown time later to the sound of harsh knocking on the door of their room. There was a crick in Thomas’s neck, the reason for which was quickly revealed by a glance at Jimmy. Thomas’s companion was blinking and bleary-eyed, as though the sleep he was surfacing from had been very, very deep -- and he was curled up around one of  _ Thomas’s  _ pillows now, clutching it to his chest and so close to his nose that Thomas was surprised he could breathe. Clearly he could, though, as he took a deep breath in, his eyes falling closed again as though he was ready to go back to sleep.

Then the knocking sounded again, accompanied by the irritated voice of Lady Anstruther. “I know you’re in there, boys!”

“Obviously,” Thomas muttered, sitting up quickly and throwing his remaining pillow back on the bed. “This is  _ our _ room.” He tugged at the duvet, in too much of a hurry to give Jimmy a warning.

Jimmy raised his head as a rush of cold air met his skin, but somehow managed to maintain a pincer-grip on the fabric. He looked around him but still seemed only half-aware of his surroundings. “Thomas?” he slurred. He didn’t wait for an answer and rolled over, taking the duvet with him and clutching Thomas’s secondary pillow closer to his chest. The dislodged duvet didn’t quite cover him properly; Thomas tried to ignore the way his disheveled pyjamas rolled up one leg as he repositioned himself, revealing a shapely calf. 

“Boys!” Anstruther knocked harder, clearly not deaf to their shuffling through the door. 

“Jimmy, come on,” Thomas urged him, giving him a prod on the shoulder. 

“What’s the rush?” Jimmy wanted to know, avoidantly smashing his face into his other pillow, which only served to make his horrible bed hair that much worse. “I were hopin’ we could have a lie in or somethin’.” 

A vivid image of it crashed into Thomas’s mind unhelpfully: Thomas reading aloud again, maybe, and Jimmy -- Jimmy would perhaps be resting his head on Thomas’s stomach --

Thomas pushed the thoughts away, the  _ yearning _ for it so strong he couldn’t handle it. The thought that Jimmy had -- well, that Jimmy had thought about that too… Thomas could feel his pulse in his throat.

Surely, though, Jimmy would have had something different in mind.

Thomas physically moved away from the tempting sight of Jimmy Kent, handsome and human and letting delicious words fall from his lips. After mechanically shrugging on his dressing gown, he went to open the door to Lady Anstruther, his distraction such that he forgot just why it was a bad idea to admit her until he had turned the handle. He stopped when the door was open just a crack and glared through the gap.

“We’ll be late for luncheon at this rate, Sleeping Beauty,” said Anstruther as she barged in over the threshold, abruptly banging Thomas in the gut with the handle as she flung the door aside with unexpected gusto. It was clear she barely recognised him as more than a piece of furniture, her attention already on Jimmy as she stepped into the messy stateroom. She was quick to notice Jimmy’s throne of pillows and blankets on the floor, though he barely stirred, perhaps not aware of anything outside his cocoon.

Thomas was frozen in horror, knowing how easy it was to deduce what had happened from the bare bunks, the bedclothes on the floor and the fact that he and Jimmy were both still undressed.

It was uncertain whether or not fortune smiled on Thomas when Lady A finally took in the state of things and realised that Jimmy was rolled up in every blanket in the room just at her feet. She whirled around, frowning darkly at Thomas as she said, “Is there a particular reason why you’ve banished poor Jimmy to the floor? Tsk, tsk -- I thought better of you.”

It was very obvious she did not. 

“Jimmy’s back was hurting,” Thomas invented, impressed at his own quick-thinking. “He’s having a lie down.” He didn’t bother to try to explain his own state of undress -- only liars fill in all the details, he thought.

“I see,” hummed Lady A with narrowed eyes that slid from Thomas’s face to the stripped mattresses that occupied both berths. “I suppose you had a chilly night, then?” 

“It’s only this morning that the pain started,” Thomas said.

Lady A hummed a long, monotone note and stared down at Jimmy with a pensive frown, almost as if she was trying to decide what to do with him. Thomas didn’t care for the way she seemed to be eyeing Jimmy’s sleeping patterns like he was a creature at the zoo, or the way she crouched down beside him to get a better look at his face. Before Thomas could stop it, she had grabbed the blanket that swathed Jimmy and tugged it away, landing a very sudden chill upon the blond. His eyes snapped open, wide with shock as he peered over the squished top of Thomas’s pillow and found himself staring at Lady Anstruther instead. A small whine began to rattle in the back of his throat, quickly jumping to a staccato yelp as he abruptly sat up and threw the pillow in horror. The cushion smacked Lady A squarely in the face, though she weathered the impact like a champion. 

“Good morning, darling,” she drawled as if nothing was out of joint. 

Jimmy remained crumpled and breathing hard, like he’d just settled down after a particularly horrifying nightmare. His dark-rimmed eyes never left Lady A, his expression shot with unease. “What’re you doin’ here?” he finally managed to say, though his words sounded strangled. 

“Here to fetch you, love,” she said sweetly, ignoring Thomas with almost practiced ease. “I was starting to worry where you’d got off to after you missed breakfast. And I know how important it is for a healthy young man to eat.” She made a shooing motion at him that reminded Thomas of Lord Grantham and his dogs. “Why not be a good boy and get some clothes on? Then you can take me for lunch. I think they’ve got those little cucumber sandwiches you like ever so much.”  

Jimmy resisted with a groan, “Not hungry.” 

Thomas raised an eyebrow, knowing immediately that Jimmy was lying. “We already have plans,” Thomas told Anstruther flatly. “So you’ll have to eat alone.”

“It would be absolutely embarrassing for a lady to turn up unaccompanied,” Anstruther rejoined sharply as she cast a rather unpleasant glare up at Thomas, even though the latter was fairly certain that Lady A cared very little for social decorums such as that. Anstruther got back to her feet and rearranged her frock, which looked like something pilfered out of Mrs. Hughes’s closet, her impatience starting to seep through. Thomas thought Mrs. Hughes had a far more regal appearance when he made the comparison.  

“Well, we wouldn’t want you to be  _ embarrassed _ ,” Thomas drawled insincerely.

“I would,” Jimmy interceded from his spot on the floor. He had made no efforts to get up or get dressed. He looked as though he might be perfectly content to roll across the floor in his undergarments for the rest of the day. Thomas tried not to think about it. 

“Don’t puff your cheeks out like that, darling. It makes your face so bourgeois and red when you do,” Lady Anstruther spoke down at Jimmy.

Much to her ire, when Jimmy popped his cheeks, it was just to belt out an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which was only made more surreal by the way sleep had made the clump of hair at the top of his head stand forward in an odd, curling swoop. It wasn’t long before Thomas had joined in with the fray, his own laughter complementing Jimmy’s low, baritone guffaws. 

“What is wrong with you,  _ James _ ?” Anstruther hissed. “You were never so rude when you used to be with me.” 

“Never had a chance to really be me back then, did I?” Jimmy found a moment to say, uncaring of how out of line his tone was.

“What does that even  _ mean _ ?” Lady A complained in a huff, just short of stamping her foot in a most unladylike fashion. They were clearly being too impossible for her, and her annoyance was starting to win out on her snide insistence on societal nuance. She had no time to hang about for an answer, and waved the pair of them off with another condescending flap of her hands as she swept towards the door. Thomas considered it a minor victory that she slammed it behind her without even one final word of sarcasm. 

“Old bag,” Jimmy muttered at the closed door, already stretching out like he meant to collapse back into the mess of pillows and blankets. “Leave it to her to ruin the best night’s sleep I’ve had in me whole life. Ugh.”

Thomas gazed down at Jimmy in the sprawl of blankets, gripped with the desire to repeat Anstruther’s parting question to Jimmy. Jimmy often seemed to say things with an obscure meaning these days, even if, lying there cosy and innocent now, it was hard to imagine that Jimmy had some grand masterplan behind every word he let slip by. 

_ Damn it all to hell _ , Thomas thought in despair, looking at Jimmy’s bare forearms exposed by rolled-up pyjama sleeves.  _ I’m never going to stop hoping that he does. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the kind reviews on the last chapter, everyone! It really blew me away how many people are still interested in reading this bonkers tale of ours. And a couple of new people have joined us too. Hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’re fucked,” Jimmy fretted, grabbing a handful of Thomas’s jacket. “What if she knows a bobbie or somethin’? I’ll never get to see her get what she deserves if we get sold upriver now!”

That stupid, coded telegram for Lady Anstruther had been bothering Jimmy with increasing magnitude since the moment Thomas had shown it to him. Leaning over the deck rail one afternoon, he glowered at all the other ships floating in the Port of Bombay and pondered on its meaning obsessively. He dared not bring it up to Thomas nearly as often as he thought about it. Firstly, he figured Thomas was probably going about trying to solve it in his own way, and he didn’t want to seem too nosy. Furthermore, he didn’t want to concern Thomas with any implications that there was a single thing out of joint, though the more consideration he gave it, the more he recalled suspicious little oddities from his days in Lady A’s service that had started to evolve a new meaning to him. But they were just fleeting memories, and it wouldn’t do to vocalise any of his new worries that Lady A was secretly involved in some mad underworld scheme, especially if it was all no more than the typical wildness that ruled Jimmy’s conscience. Jimmy prided himself on his sense of control, and it wouldn’t do to slip up, even around Thomas. 

_ Or maybe particularly around Thomas _ , Jimmy numbly added to himself, his chin flicking in Thomas’s direction just down the deck, where Thomas was in the process of destroying a pair of young boys in a shuffleboard match. Jimmy watched with amusement, distracting himself with the curiosity as to whether there was a single sport on God’s green earth that Thomas Barrow couldn’t win blindfolded.  _ Or deep, blue sea _ , Jimmy added drolly as he self-consciously adjusted the brim of his hat. 

While Jimmy watched, Thomas suddenly met his eye and let out an uncommonly carefree smile, a few strands of his dark hair tangling with his sun-kissed eyelashes. Jimmy’s nostrils stung with sea air as he breathed in sharply, as if startled, and then quickly busied his attention with his tiepin. It didn’t really need fixing, but pretending like it did made him less nervous. He looked forward to a time when he could breathe easily around Thomas without having to worry about someone like Lady A sniffing around for something to stir up trouble over. When Jimmy’s tiepin was very definitely straight, his gaze crept up to the shuffleboard game again. Jimmy wondered what the score was and whether Thomas had satisfied his competitive streak enough to go ashore with him. They were in  _ India _ , for God’s sake: that certainly didn’t happen every day.   

As casually as possible, Jimmy approached the game, hands shoved in his pockets as he neared. He personally didn’t care for the game, usually prone to putting too much force behind the puck -- a problem which seemed to also afflict the two boys Thomas was playing against. Thomas, meanwhile, had the right finesse. Jimmy loitered off to the side, quietly admiring the precision with which Thomas’s last puck knocked an opposing disc off the board before settling on one of the seven-point squares. One of the boys groaned loudly and complained, “This is bollocks.”  

Once the puck had come to a rest, Thomas glanced up at Jimmy again, with an uncharacteristic bit of shyness shading his face. Jimmy realised with a sudden bolt of clarity that, on some level, Thomas wanted to impress him.

Thomas wandered over while the boys took their turn, leaning back against the rail next to Jimmy. “I was thinking about shuffleboard,” he said in a low voice.

“You do surprise me,” Jimmy retorted.

Thomas met his eyes and gave a darkly mischievous smile with his tongue poking slightly between his teeth. “I’m full of surprises.”

Jimmy turned so red, even the tips of his ears burned. It wasn’t the first time something Thomas had said made Jimmy think about things he rather wished he wouldn’t, but the context felt different to him for a reason he couldn’t quite establish. He let it pass, certain he was just as guilty of offhanded remarks that got bent around in translation. 

Thomas’s smile dropped, and his gaze fell to the ground in front of him. “Sorry. I…” He paused for a long moment, while Jimmy’s gut twisted, though he had no idea what to say. “I was thinking about shuffleboard,” Thomas repeated firmly, squaring his drooping shoulders again. “And that telegram.” He pointed at the paint marks which made up the nearest scoring triangle -- “Start 10 off,” he read from the board, then pulled the telegram out of his pocket and showed Jimmy: “10 start off. You see?”

Jimmy screwed up his face. “She’s talkin’ about shuffleboard?”

“Ah -- no. Not  _ about _ it. It’s a clue -- it’s the key to how to read it.”

“Y-You think?” Jimmy stammered as he tried to catch up to Thomas’s logic. He supposed it made sense that the code would reference a common sight on a ship, but even he was a bit lost beyond that. 

“I think it’s about the scores,” Thomas went on, looking earnestly between the telegram, the board, and Jimmy’s face. “So say -- say we count 7 letters in.” Jimmy watched his lips moving silently as he counted. “E. And another 7… That’s E again -- d’you have a pencil?”

Jimmy fumbled in his pockets for one, even though he knew he never carried pencils -- just a brass fountain pen that bore his initials. The instrument he removed from his jacket was one he was almost as proud of as his pocket watch, though he had much less occasion to flaunt it -- but Thomas barely glanced at it before he unscrewed the cap and started scribbling.

“Thanks,” Thomas muttered, inscribing two Es. “And then 8 -- T.”

“Eet?” Jimmy repeated. “The git can’t spell eat or somethin’?”

Thomas continued counting. “Another 8, for A… And 10 is… T…” He furrowed his brow at the letters he had written underneath the telegram. “Oh…” he said after a moment, a look of foreboding overtaking his handsome features. “If you take the first letter as well, that’s ‘meet at’.”

“I knew that,” Jimmy muttered pridefully. He frowned as Thomas continued to scratch the pen nib across the card, and grew steadily more uncomfortable with each newly translated letter. He almost had to look away, distracting himself with the two boys, who were in the process of trying to rearrange the weights on the board. It made him feel better to yell at them about it.  

“It’s no bloody wonder you little bleeders aren’t any good, if cheatin’s all you got,” Jimmy shouted, swinging a fist dangerously close to Thomas. He was brought up sharply by Thomas holding up a hand..

“Dar-- Jimmy --” he stuttered, choking over whatever his first word had nearly been -- “Jimmy, it says, ‘Meet at Bombay Uni’.”

Jimmy instantly forgot the boys and their hijinks. He whirled on Thomas, his eyes wide with disbelief. It was the exact scenario he’d been trying so hard to avoid, and yet, Lady A had somehow managed to sneak right behind his back, even with every precaution they’d taken to keep her under their watch. “We’re fucked,” he fretted, grabbing a handful of Thomas’s jacket. “What if she knows a bobbie or somethin’? I’ll never get to see her get what she deserves if we get sold upriver now!” 

Thomas laid his hand over the one Jimmy had tangled in his clothing. He looked at Jimmy very seriously. “We can do this,” he said, with a sincerity that seemed to radiate out from the point of his pupils. “Keep your head. She’s still locked in, isn’t she? Can’t go meetin’ people if she’s stuck in her room.”

“We have to go and check,” Jimmy said immediately, spinning instantly on his heel. He dragged Thomas after him by the hand, sure that Thomas probably even tripped over his own feet gracefully, and sped off in the direction of Lady Anstruther’s stateroom. Seasickness and nausea churned through him, jostled with every footfall. 

When they reached the door, there was a brief moment where Jimmy felt relief that it was closed, certain for a few glorious seconds that everything was just as it should be. But when he tried the handle and found it turning easily in his grip, the dismay came rushing back. With a shout of utter frustration, he punched the door hard enough to make it swing inwards, revealing an empty room that looked as though it had been packed up thoroughly. She clearly had figured out the message long before Thomas had ever found it, and had been biding her time with some kind of plan. Waiting for Bombay. 

He nearly wanted to cry, but refused to do so, especially in front of Thomas. Instead, he just stood in the middle of the empty stateroom, nursing his bloodied knuckles with a series of little kisses as he stewed. He was almost too angry to make the leap to the next best course of action, far too consumed with the flare up of bitter memories that the whole situation conjured. Once again, Lady A was going to get away with all her little tricks without consequence. Subconsciously, he sunk his teeth into the back of his hand, and was only yanked from his internal raging by the unexpected sting.

Drawn by Jimmy’s quiet gasp of pain, Thomas strode up from behind and used both of his own hands to pull Jimmy’s away from his mouth, and cradled it. “You fool,” he murmured gently, reaching for Jimmy’s other hand. He paused with his hand outstretched. “May I?”

Jimmy wasn’t sure what Thomas was asking permission to do, but he nodded anyway.

Taking Jimmy’s other hand, Thomas compared the bumps of his knuckles, checking for serious injury. He let go and stepped back as soon as his examination was concluded. “What did you think that would help, hm?” Given the dramatic downturn in their fortunes, Thomas still looked remarkably composed, though Jimmy knew him well enough to read the anxiety in his eyes.

“It weren’t goin’ to help,” Jimmy muttered, quickly tearing his focus from the concern on Thomas’s face. “Nothin’s goin’ to help except catchin’ up with her. We’ve just got to! She’s only got an hour on us, tops. We have to get her back before the boat leaves!” There was an air of desperation to his tone that materialised in the frenetic way he started moving towards the door. He took it on faith that Thomas would follow him, bursting back out of the stateroom and rushing back towards the upper deck. In his mind, he saw only Lady A dancing just out of his reach and mocking him for all his failures. It drove him onward with righteous fury. 

The Bombay port couldn’t have been more different from the one in Barcelona, which was comparatively more serene. The bustling environment assaulted Jimmy and Thomas the moment they alighted on Indian soil, full of exotic colors and sounds that were so very unlike England. Languages that escaped Jimmy’s comprehension flew by as they pushed through the crowded dock, and it was then that Jimmy realised they’d have to find a way to get directions. Anxiously, he made another grab for Thomas, gripping him by the wrist for fear of losing him in the hubbub. He wasn’t sure exactly where the campus was, but he was unsure who to ask for directions either. The whole thing was almost a bit too alarming for Jimmy to think properly. 

“Do you know where we’re going?” Thomas’s calm voice cut into his panic.

Jimmy cast Thomas a frustrated look, though there must have been enough disquiet in his expression to make Thomas take pity on him. 

His wrist still held in Jimmy’s grip, Thomas turned and held out his other hand to stop the first person who passed them. “Excuse me -”

The woman he had stopped gave him a scathing look and muttered something in Hindi before marching off. The pink and orange of her sari swirled around her like a cloud of annoyed silk as she moved. “Angrejon…”

“Well, that -” Jimmy started, but Thomas was already stopping a middle-aged man in a business suit who couldn’t have looked more British if he had been going to a fancy dress party as an Englishman.

“Excuse me, sir,” Thomas said.

The man slowed his pace and did a double take, almost as if he hadn’t expected to be addressed in such a fashion. It wasn’t as if the English were exactly in short supply in Bombay, but perhaps the sight of Thomas and Jimmy, and their bedraggled state, was a bit jarring.

“Could you tell us the way to the university?” Thomas asked with admirable ease. 

“The nearest campus is just through town that way,” the man said, indicating vaguely northwest. “There’s a lovely clock tower there -- can’t miss it.” He took another quick glance at the pair, his eyes lingering perhaps a moment too long on the place where Jimmy’s fingers connected with Thomas’s wrist, which only made Jimmy want to grip Thomas more tightly. 

“Thank you,” Thomas said, and didn’t wait another moment before hurrying off in that direction with Jimmy tripping over his own feet in surprise as Thomas jerked him in tow. It took him a few loping steps to finally fall in step with Thomas again, though it was still difficult for him to move quite as quickly with legs that were much shorter than Thomas’s long, graceful ones. He refused to admit any sort of handicap and kept his pace doubletime. 

The promised clock tower rose up over the eclectic city much sooner than either of them had expected. It truly was a marvel of British architecture, and reminded Jimmy very much of Big Ben, the familiarity of which was an odd sort of comfort in the twist of strangeness whirling around them. Its bells sang out God Save the King just as Thomas and Jimmy were approaching the university gates. They made it onto campus with surprising ease, perhaps since no one questioned two Englishmen coming in for a visit. Jimmy cast Thomas a sideways glance as he considered the nuances of it, wondering what sorts of feelings a man like Thomas would have about those kinds of assumptions. He kept his hand wrapped firmly around Thomas’s wrist for support as they walked across the green, unsure where they ought to start looking for Lady A. There was a certain peacefulness to it as they strolled along, and for a few moments, Jimmy’s fingers slackened and fell easily against the inside of Thomas’s curved palm. There was a din in Jimmy’s chest like the bells swinging in the clocktower: calm, and melodic, yet overwhelmingly disruptive and loud. 

“She’s got to have a mate or somethin’ lurkin’ here,” Jimmy eventually said, mostly in an effort to regulate his discordant nerves. His fingers twitched against Thomas’s, a little reverberation ringing up his wrist at the touch. 

Slowly, lingeringly, Thomas slipped his hand out of Jimmy’s, and a nameless panic gripped Jimmy’s mind. But Thomas was giving him a reassuring sort of smile -- and Jimmy abruptly became aware that he had been holding a man’s hand in a public place. He cleared his throat and stuffed his hands deep into his pockets.

“I guess so,” Thomas agreed vaguely, lighting a cigarette and breathing in the smoke like he was drowning.

Jimmy cast another glance at Thomas, a little thrown by such a noncommittal answer. Usually Thomas was the logical one, but something seemed to be on his mind. He hadn’t even made a single comment about the clock tower, which Jimmy found alarming, considering that Thomas never missed an opportunity to harp on about his favourite hobby. He’d have thought a brand new specimen to examine would have sent Thomas over the moon, not fumbling for a smoke. Jimmy was left crushing his brain in an effort to ascertain what had caused the sudden shift in Thomas’s mood. 

“Let’s have a bit more care, shall we?” Thomas suggested vaguely as he took a long drag on his cigarette. Jimmy watched, flexing empty fingers that ached for something to do, even if it was just to bum a smoke off Thomas and join him in the intoxicating ritual. His skin was crawling, but not out of the usual discomfort that plagued Jimmy’s relationship to the world around him. 

Then it struck him, the reason for Thomas’s oddness -- struck him like he’d just been flung off a high-flying pendulum and was whistling face-first towards the earth. His brain hit the floor and his loose fingers ached -- somehow cold even in the scorching heat. Sheepishly, he kicked a stray rock out of his path while he obsessed over what it meant. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Thomas’s hand freeze on its way to carry his cigarette to his mouth. “Is that…” Thomas began. He pitched the cigarette -- “It’s Anstruther!”

The exclamation was enough to rouse Jimmy from his daze, immediately refuelled by his righteous fury. He peered into the glaring Indian sun, his eyes darting from wandering students and other inconsequential passersby until he picked her out. The black frock and cloche hat Thomas had chosen to be inconspicuous in England were jarringly more noticeable in their new landscape, even as she walked arm-in-arm with a very academic gentleman in a bowler hat. Jimmy could practically smell the money wafting off his expensive-looking suit, which looked like it had been tailored in Paris or London. 

Jimmy’s best plan was to do a quick run and grab, but he resisted the urge. Similar impulses had landed them in their current mess. He deferred to Thomas with a pleading expression. 

Thomas seemed to sense Jimmy’s internal conflict, though he couldn’t help a quick roll of his eyes as he started to walk very resolutely towards Lady Anstruther and her companion. Jimmy trotted after him, confident that even if Thomas was in the process of making something up on the spot, it was going to be a sight more controlled than Jimmy’s next-best-idea -- which involved a chloroform-soaked handkerchief he didn’t have handy, and perhaps a bit of violence that would likely be unhelpful to their situation. He at least had a good excuse to tell the police, which was that it was a crime of passion and he ought to be given the benefit of the doubt. 

“My lady!” Thomas exclaimed as they came within a few feet. She had apparently not noticed their approach, and looked up with, for the first time, something close to alarm. “I do apologise for losing track of you,” Thomas went on in a servant’s simpering tone, his smile a brittle, fake one used to show a butler’s disapproval without being impertinent. “I’m afraid we’ve made rather a fuss. But the police will be pleased to know that we’ve found you safe and sound.”

“The  _ police _ ,” the professor intoned to Lady A with a slight widening of his eyes. To the casual observer, it might have been seen as concern, but there was an underlying current of displeasure in the look. “My dear, is there something you haven’t  _ told me _ ?” 

Lady A gave a shrill laugh that she masked behind her knuckles. “Do you really think so  _ little  _ of me?” She then threw Thomas a particularly disgusted glance, like she would have loved to sack him on the spot if she could have. She became only slightly less cool as Jimmy caught up to the scene, though he lingered mostly behind Thomas’s frame -- almost as if he was frightened. 

“Of course not, milady,” Thomas said, in a tone that implied he was faintly scandalised at the suggestion. “We were just concerned that we couldn’t find you, so we explained everything to the police so they could help us. I believe Jimmy still has something to return to you.” He affected a bland smile, perfect for the servant’s act he was putting on.

“Oh, right -- safekeepin’, m’lady,” Jimmy interjected, standing on his toes so that he could peek over Thomas’s shoulder as he spoke. “Explained to the coppers that we were worried someone’d tried to rob you, not realisin’ that you were clever enough to leave the real valuables with a trusted servant.” 

“And what exactly did the police have to say about  _ that _ ?” the professor queried, clearly very displeased by the entire conversation. He kept shifting his unhappy glare between Lady A, Thomas and Jimmy, almost as if he couldn’t decide which one of them angered him the most. His frown finally settled on Jimmy, looking him up and down like there was something about him he couldn’t quite place. “You don’t look like much.” 

Another high-pitched laugh escaped Lady Anstruther, this one much more forced and awkward than the last. “Oh, I can assure you that  _ James  _ there is much more than a pretty face.” Now both aristocrats were scrutinising Jimmy, though Jimmy forced himself to brave it with a sharp glower. 

“You’ve got nerve,” the professor sniffed. He was growing less impressed with the situation -- much to the pleasure of Thomas and Jimmy. “Well, turn it over to your betters. No need to keep up this silly charade.” 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jimmy recoiled, sinking back behind Thomas’s shoulder. “It’s bad enough worryin’ about m’lady walkin’ about here as it is. No need to make her more of a prize for anythin’....  _ untoward _ .” 

“If you’re ready, milady, I believe your appointment is starting soon,” Thomas put in.

“And we ought to escort you,” Jimmy added, peering around Thomas. 

“I think I’ll decline the invitation,” Lady A attempted to sidestep leaving with Thomas and Jimmy, clearly aware that they were working some sort of scam on her. But her precarious position and the threat of being carried off to the police was keeping her from being able to make a clean break. 

“Well, we can stay with you until you’re ready to depart,” Jimmy suggested. Then a confident and devilish thought occurred to him, which unfurled across his lips in a dark smile: “After all, it only takes one of us to run back to the station to let the coppers know that everythin’s alright. Fill ‘em in and that.” 

“This sounds like it’s got a bit complicated -- which is most unexpected,” the professor said to Lady A, who had become the new target of his displeasure. Clearly the idea of the police somehow made the professor uncomfortable -- likely because of some related criminal activity, Jimmy guessed. His gaze flicked over to Thomas, who was looking politely over Anstruther’s shoulder with a cultured, but blank expression. It was as though he knew they had already won. Anstruther glanced between Thomas, Jimmy and the professor. There was a slight crease between her eyebrows; it seemed to be the first time that she had doubted her ability to outwit them.

“It’s all manageable,” was the best plea Lady A had, somehow drained of her usual wit. Jimmy took a disgusting amount of pleasure in watching her flounder.

“Is it?” the professor demanded. “It doesn’t sound like it. To  _ me _ , it sounds like you’ve lost control of the very  _ simple things  _ you’ve been tasked with. Simple, but delicate, my dear. Very, very  _ delicate _ .” 

Lady A gave Thomas and Jimmy the most hateful sneer that had ever graced the planet Earth. “I can assure you that the  _ problem  _ will be dealt with swiftly,” she said venomously. 

Thomas was completely unfazed by the display, remaining just as stoic as ever. “If only it were that easy to sack someone else’s staff,” he said with the slightest hint of victoriousness to his tone. 

“I suppose you could always make a complaint to the police,” Jimmy suggested in a way that was meant to be completely unhelpful. It was the final hit that brought Lady A to her proverbial knees in defeat.

She smiled tightly. “There’s no need for that.”

“We’ll escort you to your appointment then, milady,” Thomas said. “I know how keen you were not to be late.”

The look on Anstruther’s face as she reluctantly accompanied them was murderous, but Jimmy, for once, was too buoyed up on adrenaline and victory to be afraid of her. It felt as though he and Thomas had slain a dragon together. He glanced back over his shoulder once, to see the professor frowning disapprovingly at Lady A’s retreating back. Thomas was strolling along on the other side of Lady A as though he hadn’t a care in the world -- as though they were just out for a late-afternoon ambulation. He looked so smug that Jimmy had to bite the inside of his cheeks to keep from grinning.

Lady A, on the other hand, looked set to explode. “I hope you know this is blackmail,” she hissed at Jimmy. “You’re the lowest of the low, now. Judges don’t take kindly to  _ people like you _ casting aspersions on a lady’s reputation.”

The mention of  _ judges _ was  _ almost _ enough to put a dent in Jimmy’s good mood, but then he remembered: “Only if we haven’t got  _ proof _ . I can’t see a judge taking too kindly to you tricking people out of their hard-inherited money, either.”

Jimmy savoured the moment as Lady A was cast into silence. Her lips were pressed together so tightly that they were white.

“We’d better head for the train station,” Thomas said. “We can’t get back on the boat now.”

“What? Why -- oh.” Even as he spoke, Jimmy realised that they couldn’t take the risk of Lady A pulling the same trick again at the next port along. He pulled out his pocket watch and realised that there was barely fifteen minutes until the ship was due to leave. It wasn’t nearly enough time to get back to the port, get on the ship, collect their belongings and jump off again. They had lost everything in their cases. Jimmy resisted the urge to pat his pockets, but, mentally, he catalogued the weight of the few things he had been carrying around with him for safety: his money, Thomas’s onyx cuff links, the necklace papers, and, of course, the necklace itself. Beyond that, he had nothing.

He glanced at Thomas again. Well. Not quite nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's only now I'm posting that I realise we weren't entirely fair and open with the clues in this... In our defence, we were writing an adventure story; the mystery story kind of crept up on us. Hopefully there was enough thommy cuteness for you to have fun anyway! I'd love if you reviewed and let me know what you thought; I actually have a little time to write this weekend and I need some motivationnn. (Again, even just a quick "still reading!" is really helpful!)


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and Jimmy have a moment, and Thomas and Anstruther have an argument.

If Thomas was honest, it was a bit of a relief to be off the boat at last. There was plenty to  _ do _ on there, but there was always a slight undercurrent of claustrophobia, knowing that he couldn’t leave without getting his feet (and everything else) very wet. He, Jimmy and Anstruther had found the train station without much issue, and approached the ticket office together.

“Three single tickets, please,” Thomas asked the woman serving.

She raised an eyebrow. “Where to?”

Thomas glanced to the side to ask for Jimmy’s opinion, only to realise that he was not there. With a shock of adrenaline, he looked for Lady A -- who was right next to him on the other side.

“He wandered off,” she drawled, checking her nails. Her anger had simmered down a little on the walk to the train station, but Thomas was sure that her brain was racing ten to the dozen, trying to think her way out of her situation.

Thomas looked back at the ticket seller. “Calcutta,” he decided, since Jimmy still seemed determined to get to Shanghai, and Calcutta was the closest the Indian railways would get them to that goal.

He exchanged some of his cash for the three tickets, listening carefully as the woman told him the name of the place where they would have to change trains. When he turned around again, Jimmy had reappeared, wearing a cat-got-the-cream smirk. “What’s up with you?” Thomas asked.

Jimmy seemed to make some attempt to bring his expression under control. “Nothin’. C’mon, let’s just go. Which platform?”

Thomas said, “Platform 3.”

“Alright.” Jimmy swung his gaze around the station. “That way,” he said, pointing at a sign denoting Platform 3. As he marched off in that direction, Thomas noticed he had a paper bag stuck under one arm that he hadn’t been carrying before. He hoped Jimmy hadn’t gotten frivolous again -- though far be it from him to tell Jimmy what to do with his own money. 

They filed onto the train, Lady A being suspiciously meek. “You’re very cooperative all of a sudden,” Thomas observed with a frown as they walked down the aisle, Jimmy in front and Thomas bringing up the rear.

“Maybe I’ve grown bored of Bombay,” Lady A sniffed as she followed Jimmy, who was being selective about which compartment he wanted to occupy for the long journey ahead. 

“You’ve only been here five minutes,” Jimmy derided, stopping in front of an empty compartment at the end of one carriage. Jimmy opened the door and actually held it for Lady A, though as he continued to do so after she’d gone through, Thomas wondered if the gesture was more of a friendly one reserved for him, rather than a gentlemanly one for Anstruther. He thanked Jimmy as he entered the compartment after the dowager. 

Just as Thomas was settling on the bench opposite Lady A, Jimmy pulled the compartment’s door shut and whirled around on his heel. He immediately plopped down beside Thomas and, before Thomas even fully comprehended what was happening, was shoving the mysterious paper bag he’d acquired at the train station into Thomas’s lap. “I just happened upon these,” he explained, though Thomas distinctly remembered Jimmy’s absence at the ticket office lasting much longer than a mere side distraction. He didn’t comment on it and simply accepted the package with an arched eyebrow. 

Opening the bag, Thomas saw two books nestled inside. He pulled them out and put one on each knee to look at: they were two more Poirot novels. One of them was a replacement of the anthology he had had to leave on the ship.

Proudly, Jimmy poked the other one, which was entitled  _ Murder on the Links _ . “This one has that Hastings bloke you like in it,” Jimmy announced with a note of excitement, almost like he couldn’t wait for Thomas to read it -- or, more exactly, read it  _ with  _ him. “I know because I read a little bit of it at the newsstand before I picked it.” 

Thomas almost wanted to tell him off for spending more money on him, but when he looked up, Jimmy looked so pleased with himself that Thomas couldn’t bear to admonish him. Instead, he smiled. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome!” Jimmy sounded like he’d been bursting to say the words.  

Outside, the train’s whistle cut through the air, and the chug of the locomotive began to build up steam as the train started to pull out of the station. Thomas barely noticed, still carefully turning the books over in his hands. He had been a little disappointed when he’d realised that a casualty of running after Lady A so frantically had been the book of Poirot short stories Jimmy had first purchased for him in Barcelona, but this new copy Jimmy had bestowed upon him certainly made up for the loss. He opened the pristine book, still somehow feeling nostalgia for the time he’d read from it to Jimmy. It was almost the exact same, except  _ this  _ particular copy had a note scrawled on the first page in pen.  

_ ‘So we can read the rest together,’ _ it said in Jimmy’s rather elegant handwriting. Then a large, looping ‘ _ J’ _ beneath it. 

Thomas opened his mouth to say something -- he wasn’t sure what -- but Lady A interrupted. “You two are so  _ boring _ ,” she said. Thomas had half-forgotten she was there for a moment, and when he looked up, she was glaring between them with narrowed eyes.

“I’m sorry the entertainment isn’t up to scratch,” Thomas drawled insincerely. Discreetly, he stroked his thumb over the inscription as he closed the book.

“And I’ve forgotten all my juggling tricks,” Jimmy added with a glare, clearly irritated by just the mere sound of her voice. “How many times do I have to tell you this isn’t s’posed to be  _ fun  _ for you, eh?”

“You’ve made that very clear, James,” huffed Lady A. Then she let out a heavy sigh and leaned her chin in her hand, staring angrily out the window as the train gathered speed and left Bombay far behind. 

Thomas let the view out of the window distract him, watching as the sun slowly set on the whole new world they had found themselves in. To his left, Jimmy’s head began to nod and roll, only for him to snatch it up again as he tried to drag himself back into wakefulness. Since the train wouldn’t be stopping until the morning, they had let Lady A explore the train unaccompanied, leaving he and Jimmy in the compartment alone.

Eventually, Jimmy let out a long breath and let his head rest on Thomas’s shoulder.

Thomas froze.

Jimmy didn’t move, other than to nuzzle his cheek against Thomas’s jacket. “‘M sorry I touch you so much,” he slurred, clearly right on the edge of sleep.

Thomas thought back to all the times Jimmy had touched him just that day -- holding his wrist, then his  _ hand _ , and gripping his jacket-front. He curled his fingers into loose fists on the seat either side of him. “Why do you?” he murmured, wondering if this would be the best time to get a truthful answer. He was transfixed by Jimmy’s face, able to stare without reproach.

A small frown creased Jimmy’s brows, though his eyes remained closed. “Can’t help it…”

Blinking at him, Thomas asked, “What d’you mean?”

No answer was forthcoming. Jimmy had fallen asleep.

Thomas picked up his new books from the seat next to him, lingering over the inscription in the anthology before turning to the first page of  _ Murder on the Links _ and beginning to read. He was only a dozen pages in when Lady Anstruther slid open the compartment door and returned to her seat opposite them.

“You’re quite the avid bookworm, it seems,” she said, inconsequentially buffing her nails on her frock. It was hard to tell if she was making a genuine observation, or if she was trying to give Thomas a hard time. Either way, it was apparent that his answer was unimportant to her, as her eyes were very pointedly drawn to the spot where Jimmy’s head connected with Thomas’s person. 

Thomas turned the page and didn’t trouble to respond.

“Bedtime stories, is it?” she asked with a slight increase in derision. 

“Agatha Christie,” Thomas said. He looked up with a smirk to add: “It’s about a man who  _ solves crimes _ .”

“I haven’t the faintest what you’re implying. You must have quite a fantastic imagination,  _ darling _ ,” she drawled, clearly thick with sarcasm. “It’s no wonder Jimmy’s got his head so full of such ridiculous ideas if  _ you  _ were the sort of mentor he had at Downton.” 

Thomas frowned. “What’s that s’posed to mean?”

Lady A preened a bit, fixing her hat and her collar like the adjustment somehow made her better than Thomas. As she smoothed out her skirt, she said, “Oh, I only meant that the Jimmy  _ I  _ knew would never waste his time with such grand stories.  _ My  _ Jimmy was a much more practical lad --”

“Then clearly Jimmy’s  _ more _ than you thought he was --” Thomas interrupted, close to snarling, but Lady A did not even slow down.

“-- who had a very smart grasp of how this world works and how to get ahead,” she went on, barely even acknowledging Thomas’s input. “You’ve obviously got him….” At this pause, she gave Thomas and Jimmy a particularly scathing once-over, her displeasure more than apparent as she finished her thought: “ _ Confused _ .”   

“I haven’t got him confused about anything,” Thomas said. His voice was shaking slightly with anger, though he made an effort to keep it low to avoid disturbing Jimmy. “He’s a grown bloody man; he does whatever he likes. As he should.”

“A grown man who still likes  _ bedtime stories _ , apparently,” Lady A snapped without any reservation in her displeasure. “Don’t think I can’t see what you’re trying to do, Barrow.” 

Thomas stared at her for a moment, genuinely nonplussed. “It’s just readin’. Maybe you don’t like us workin’ class types opening a book but it’s still just readin’.”

The shrillness that came with Lady Anstruther’s immediate response gave Thomas the impression that she’d have liked to tear her hair and clothes if she could. “It’s not about the bloody  _ books _ ,” she snapped, just short of calling Thomas something particularly unladylike. “It’s about  _ James _ .” 

Thomas had a sudden, strange notion that the ugly look in Anstruther’s eyes was… jealousy. But that was ridiculous. Also, potentially dangerous. Thomas’s mind flicked back over his own behaviour since he had first seen Lady A in Jimmy’s dusty basement, searching for any sign that he had betrayed his feelings in front of her. He didn’t think he had, though. He always made sure to be very, very careful. “His name’s  _ Jimmy _ . Thought you always called him that anyway?”

“I do --  _ you  _ don’t,” she explained with a slight curl to her lip. “He’s not like that to you -- or anyone.”  

“He doesn’t have to be  _ like anything _ ,” Thomas said hotly. “He asked us to call him that at Downton, so we do. It’s called  _ courtesy _ .” Jimmy began to stir on Thomas’s shoulder, apparently disturbed by the angry voices or the tension in Thomas’s body. Thomas fell silent, and made an effort to relax his body.

“Courtesy? Ha! I wouldn’t expect you to know it if it chewed your nose off,” Lady A retorted, clearly extolling weeks and weeks worth of inwardly driven rage. “Courtesy, if you have to know, is respecting your betters, and appreciating it when they are kind enough to reward your efforts appropriately.  _ Jimmy  _ understood that in my house. He was always exactly what he was expected to be -- and then some. The Jimmy I know would have never done…  _ this _ .” She gestured to the train compartment around them like it was absolutely inhumane.

Thomas’s consideration of what  _ this _ entailed sent his anger tumbling into amusement. “What, completely outwit you and drag you off to another country?” He snorted. “You’re really showing your ignorance of Jimmy here, Mrs. Anstruther. But then, it’s been a while since he was working for you -- he’s changed a lot.”

With the amount of insult that struck Lady A’s face, Thomas might as well have called her any number of crude words that he and Jimmy reserved for their own little conversations. She trembled with aggravation, clearly not used to being put toe-to-toe with someone as rough and tumble as Thomas. The ugly shape of her usually well-poised lips emphasised her distaste as she spat back, “I still know him well enough to know what’s best for him. I know him well enough to know he’s obviously  _ not well _ right now. You’re to blame for it, I know it.” She was building to quite a crescendo, though she was careful to keep her voice just low enough that no one passing by would realise there was an argument roiling inside: “If he’d have just come with me to France, he’d have never met  _ you _ . All these years around someone so poisonous…” She scoffed and threw her hands up in the air, like there were no other words to describe how hateful she found Thomas’s relationship with Jimmy -- in any sense of the word. Or so Thomas chose to read it.  

“The only thing wrong with Jimmy is being around  _ you _ ,” Thomas retorted.

Though Thomas hadn’t raised his voice, Jimmy suddenly awoke with a jolt and a gasped: “Thomas!” His eyes were wide and staring, and he grabbed Thomas’s bicep as though he was checking Thomas was real. He breathed heavily. “I dreamed you were dead,” he said, his face crumpling. “And it was too late.”

It took him a few moments to realise that both Lady A and Thomas were both staring at him like he was some sort of main attraction. Self-consciously, he checked himself to see if there was something embarrassing to be found, like drool caked on his cheek or perhaps a very embarrassing arrangement to his hair. Then he pressed a finger into the well of each eye, like he was trying to press wakefulness into his skull, but Thomas could have sworn there was a slight sheen to his fingertips as he brought them away. 

“I’m… fine,” Thomas murmured awkwardly, with a quick, nervous glance at Lady A.

“Oh, lamb, nightmares, still, is it?” Lady A cooed, though she was flinging a dark glare at Thomas as she spoke. 

Jimmy ignored her and sunk back into his seat, almost rigidly pressed against the back as he stared straight across the compartment. His feet were fidgeting, twisting round one another, aware that Lady A was still keeping tabs on him. Grudgingly, he released his hold on Thomas with rusty fingers, surreptitiously dropping his hand in the space between them. Thomas could still feel his hand as it lay there, though it wasn’t in nearly so obvious a fashion as it had been before. He had to sternly command himself not to think too hard on it.  

Instead, Jimmy just casually asked, “Had a chance to start that book yet?” It was obvious who the question was for.

“I started a few pages,” Thomas told him, hoping his voice sounded normal.

“Is it good?” Jimmy then wanted to know. “Tell us about it.” 

Thomas began to explain the opening of the novel as the train rattled on through the night, until, eventually, all three of them had nodded off, left to sleep the rest of the late-night journey away. 


	16. Chapter 16

Somewhere in the middle of the country -- Jimmy wasn’t quite sure where, because he couldn’t pronounce a single word on any signs they passed -- Thomas informed them they would have to switch trains en route to Calcutta. Jimmy didn’t particularly mind the nuisance or the delay, and chalked it up to the spirit of adventure -- which, he had to add, was much more fun when he had a partner in crime as devilish as Thomas. The very thought made him snigger to himself every time it crossed his mind: grabbing Lady A had been one thing, but having someone who enjoyed taking it to the next level as much as he did? Nothing in the whole world could buy that -- and he would know: he’d tried. 

Still, as the three of them loitered in the oppressive heat, waiting on a train that wasn’t due for at least another four hours, Jimmy felt a familiar itch in his pocket, like holding as much cash as he currently was could only be useful if it was about to be spent. Success had been pleasant, surely, but the part of Jimmy that had grown up poor and working class still got terribly uncomfortable around money. Or so he justified to himself whenever he found himself blindly flipping paper off the top of his wallet. That was more or less his line of thinking when he wandered off, leaving Lady A in Thomas’s care, to find something else to burn his money on. A certain guilt still pervaded him at the thought of spending on himself, especially now that he already had everything he could ever want, but at least buying things for other people certainly covered all his bases. Self-satisfaction waved over him as he traded a couple of coins for another Agatha Christie novel he’d caught sight of at a nearby newsstand.  _ The Mysterious Affair at Styles _ , Jimmy had read on the cover, turning the pristine book over in his hands moments before purchasing it; something about the title sounded regal -- like Thomas. 

He returned to Thomas and Lady A, who were waiting near the entrance to the railway station. Hoping he didn’t look  _ too  _ excited about his secret purchase, Jimmy skidded to a halt just as Thomas came into view. There were swarms of people moving this way and that in the busy station, but the one that burned into Jimmy’s vision was the single human that Thomas seemed to be paying attention to. Gone were any concerns that Thomas’s lack of attention might have given Lady A the perfect chance to slip away, or even any worry that someone might mug them from behind: all of it was completely overshadowed by the young, lanky Indian man in a conductor’s uniform, who was halfway through helping an elderly lady get her cases stacked on a trolley. Something about Thomas’s focus on him came off as more than mere absent-mindedness -- especially as the young man leaned over to pick up the lady’s handbag.

Jimmy seethed, exploding with irritation at how utterly mundane the whole display was, and was close to flinging the book he’d just purchased into a nearby bin. Thomas was being completely irresponsible, staring at things that could be found anywhere else on the planet. They’d ridden railways all their lives: what was really worth seeing  _ there _ ?

“I suppose you’ve finished that book already,” Jimmy said rather coolly as he approached. He shoved the paper-wrapped novel he’d just bought in Thomas’s direction, shrugging, “Just in case you’re startin’ to get  _ bored  _ or sommat.” 

Thomas let out a small laugh, not looking chastised enough for Jimmy’s liking. “I only got it yesterday -- I’m still on the second chapter.” He took the package Jimmy was holding out, saying: “What’s this, then?” He unwrapped the paper and revealed the book.

“Like I told you, you seemed a bit  _ bored _ ,” Jimmy repeated with even more weight on the phrase, like doing so would make his implication sink in harder. “You know I like keepin’ you on your toes and all.”  

“You bought me another book,” Thomas said, with a rather confused but undoubtedly pleased expression on his face. He seemed oblivious to Jimmy’s temper until he looked up and saw his soured features. “Thanks. Are you alright?”

“ _ I  _ happen to be absolutely perfect,” Jimmy said with folded arms. “Not a happier bloke this side of the globe than me.”

“Alright,” Thomas said, giving him a strange look. “Try smilin’; you’ll confuse people with that face.” With a bit of trepidation, he paused and asked once more: “You sure you’re alright?”

“ _ Yes, _ ” Jimmy hissed, unable to stop himself as he added for good measure: “An’ if I got to say it again, I’ll clock you one.” Then, filled with obvious irritation that everyone in the world but Jimmy himself seemed to notice, he stomped towards the street exit on the pretense of gagging for some fresh air. He stopped only long enough to shoot a stern glare over his shoulder, first scanning the crowd for any signs of that same conductor, and then back over to Thomas and Lady A: “Well? We just gonna stand there and watch the grass grow all afternoon?” he demanded. “Ain’t every day you wake up in India.” 

Thomas shrugged unconcernedly before getting up to follow. He bent to pick up Anstruther’s case for her, and seemed to be taking the opportunity to glance again at that lanky young man Jimmy was beginning to hate with all his might. Anstruther heaved a great, irritated sigh and pushed gracefully to her feet, walking ahead of Thomas when he tilted his head.

“What did you have in mind?” Thomas asked as they caught up.

“Oh, I dunno, little of this, little of that,” Jimmy said vaguely, as his knowledge of the country was limited to what bits of schooling he hadn’t snoozed through. He was a little more interested in just getting a feel for the culture -- even if it was infected by the same Britishisms that were common back home. Already, as they passed through the busy streets, Jimmy felt drab and out of place in his English tweeds, which were as boring as they were swelteringly hot. He pulled desperately at his collar to cool off. 

“Lots of revolutions against the Crown out this way,” Thomas said conversationally. Then he added more menacingly: “Maybe we could lose someone in the middle of one.” He cast an unfriendly glare at Lady A.

Of course Thomas had a way of dispelling any and all foul moods. Jimmy immediately fell to amusement at the idea, sniggering, “Yeah. Don’t think those anti-imperialist sorts would take too well to some fancy dowager strollin’ through town like she owned the place, do you?” 

“You’re every bit as British as I am, dear,” Lady A said crisply. “And arrogant enough to make up for your poverty.”

“I ain’t the one destroyin’ industry in an oppressed colony with high taxes and monopolised imports for me personal fancy, am I?” Jimmy answered just as tartly, touching all five fingers together as he spoke. He cast a very dark side eye at Lady A, certain she was taken aback by someone of his status having any sort of opinion about politics, and added: “But I wouldn’t expect to know as much about any of that as  _ you _ do. Peddlin’ phony jewels and all.”  

“Oh no, you’re just stealing and blackmailing respectable ladies,” she snapped. Since they had foiled her plot to escape, she seemed to be rapidly losing her patience with them, and Jimmy particularly. She seemed especially burned that her intricate machinations had been foiled by someone she had thought beneath her and under her control. 

“Why don’t we just ask a local what they think about that, ey?” Jimmy said, just short of laughing as he made a show of picking through the crowd. 

“I wonder if there’s a market on today,” Thomas said loudly, before Lady A could get in a retort. “It’s a big city. I’m sure they have them a lot.”

“Oh, good show, Thomas!” said Jimmy, excited that Thomas had shown an interest in something. “Let’s get you a souvenir or somethin’.” Without even being told to do so, Jimmy took the lead and started cutting through the throngs of people with a shoving arm. 

“What do I need a souvenir for?” Thomas said with amusement. “I’m already collectin’ a whole library.”

“I mean for _here --_ this place,” Jimmy waved off unimportantly -- like there was a difference that was inherently obvious. As he strained to air out his collar yet again, it struck him just where _here_ was, and it suddenly became very significant that Thomas was there with him. Of course he wanted to be sure that Thomas understood he was appreciated for chasing him on such an outrageous fool’s errand. In Jimmy’s mind, there wasn’t enough money in the world to buy Thomas the thanks he deserved. He would have to settle for spending at least enough to try. 

Jimmy continued to press onwards without any pause for direction, complaining so much about the climate that Thomas eventually suggested Jimmy just remove his jacket and hat if it was that oppressive. Which appeased Jimmy for about another ten yards before the heat attacked his linens and waistcoat and left him in the same predicament. “This place is hellish,” Jimmy bemoaned, practically falling to his knees as the sun melted sweat off him. He shot a glance at Thomas, demanding, “How are you not dyin’ in this? You can’t tell me you ain’t hotter than the sun over there.” 

“Never said I weren’t,” Thomas answered plainly, though his expression was a befuddled one. 

It was then that Jimmy was struck with a brilliant new plan -- one that thrilled him so much, he had to take Thomas forcibly by the hand and jerk him a few steps before he realised they’d forgotten Lady A. Abandoning Thomas for a moment, Jimmy returned for Lady A, subtly guiding her forward with a nudging elbow. She frowned at Jimmy with disapproval as he goaded her along, though it seemed to be Thomas’s possession of her case that kept her plodding forward.

Once they were all travelling as a pack once more, Jimmy confidently scanned the shops as they passed by. He was definitely in search of something specific, though the mischievous part of him wanted to keep a certain air of mystery to it. After about fifteen minutes, he found exactly what he was looking for, and stopped at the doorway of a little menswear store that boasted some rather exotic fashions in its front window. “When in Rome,” he said as he hurriedly swept his hand into the shop, eager for Thomas to catch up. 

“You’re going to buy yourself some Indian clothes, eh?” Thomas asked, casting his eyes across what was on offer.

“Yes, but I’m also going to buy you some as well,” Jimmy replied.

“I don’t  _ need  _ any Indian clothes,” Thomas retorted, looking almost alarmed at the vast range of colours arrayed around them. The shopkeeper cast him a look of dislike.

“You need what I say you need,” Jimmy answered petulantly, pulling the shop door closed behind Lady A with a pointed bang. “And I say you need to be comfortable.” 

Casting her eyes around the store in search of any ladies clothing, Anstruther was quick to interject. “I assume we’ll be making another stop after you boys are seen to?” she asked in a honeyed tone when she found nothing suitable to her taste. 

Jimmy literally froze mid-step when he heard her question, and then nearly stumbled when he was assaulted by dry laughter. “You’re funnier than I remember,” he said with a derisive sneer, not at all bothered by whether or not she was offended by it. As far as he was concerned, suffering for British fashion could be part of her punishment. 

Jimmy then put her out of mind, and poked at the glass display case that separated them from the shopkeeper. “Look, it’s not so different from what we’ve got at home,” Jimmy said, pointing at a folded coat with a tall collar and embroidered patterns. 

“Everything is made here,” the shopkeeper interjected with unexpectedly clean English. “Nothing  _ British _ ,” he emphasised. 

“Oh, brilliant,” Jimmy drawled, handing Lady A a particularly dirty stare. “All the more reason to try it on.” He looked back at the garment in the case, which was white and detailed with red handiwork. The fabric seemed to be hand-woven, which gave it a certain amount of authenticity that was lacking in the reproductions that were so popular back home. “Let’s give it a go, shall we?” he said to the shopkeeper, tapping the glass decisively. 

Thomas had moved to stand next to Jimmy at the counter, furrowing his brow at the coat as the shopkeeper removed it. “I really don’t need a whole new wardrobe,” he repeated as the shopkeeper unfurled the garment, which was a knee-length frock that buttoned from neck to waist. It was vented and laced at the sides.  

Jimmy turned to look at his friend, frowning at his attire. Despite Thomas’s protests, his suit was drenched in sweat. “Really?” Jimmy said, fixating on Thomas’s attire a brief moment before he boldly reached for Thomas’s waistcoat and pulled, ripping the top three buttons clean off. “How about now?” he said as the buttons bounced across the floor and rolled away.

Thomas stared at him. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded, and Jimmy was unnerved to find that he sounded genuinely angry. “Fine,” Thomas spat. “If it means that much to you, I’ll try on the bloody coat.” He turned huffily to the shopkeeper, who still held the garment.

“You’ll thank me later,” Jimmy insisted, trying hard not to be bothered by how short Thomas had been. He just wanted to be helpful, but the embarrassment of having his goodwill backfire was a little hard to digest. “Get him all squared away -- don’t worry about the cost,” he told the shopkeeper as he started towards the back of the store, where there seemed to be a changing cubicle. “We’ll worry about me later.” 

Thomas seemed concerned at such a directive, but still grudgingly went through the motions of being measured for both the coat and a pair of tapered trousers that customarily went with such a frock. Then he took the clothing to the back and vanished behind the purple curtain that hung to provide privacy. Meanwhile, Jimmy was already scanning the shop for other colours he thought Thomas might like. 

When Thomas stepped back out, Jimmy had to do a double-take. The white had the unfortunate effect of making Thomas look ghostly, but the cut of the jacket was very flattering, especially in combination with the trousers that pronounced the shape of Thomas’s legs. “How’s it feel?” Jimmy asked.

“Alright,” Thomas said, though he still sounded a little grumpy. He glanced down at himself, and Jimmy noticed that his hands were curled into loose fists. He seemed embarrassed.

“It’s probably the colour,” Jimmy said with folded arms. He then gestured to the shopkeeper, who had been interrupted in his task of helping Jimmy retrieve other options for Thomas by Lady A. She seemed determined to find out details about the city they were currently in, though the shopkeeper seemed equally relieved to be able to escape her line of questioning. He hurried to Thomas with three more frocks of a similar cut and the trousers that went along with each. This selection featured an array of green, yellow and blue, each embroidered with the sort of delicacy that no factory in Britain could ever hope to reproduce. 

Thomas first tried on the yellow, which was actually more of a deep gold, and a vast improvement from the white, though still not quite perfect. “That one fits you better, though,” said Jimmy when Thomas revealed himself in the outfit. 

“Mm…” Thomas agreed vaguely, but the petulance had vanished from him now.

“Try the blue,” Jimmy suggested. “That one had crackin’ patterns on it.” 

“It’s all very bright,” Thomas observed uncertainly, but he turned to do as Jimmy had said all the same.

“You got to be cheerful about  _ somethin’  _ in this bloody heat,” Jimmy justified with a wave of his hand. He impatiently tapped his foot as he waited and roved the store in search of something more suited to Thomas’s taste. It was then that he noticed a deep green coat somewhat shoved aside. He was drawn to it with childlike curiosity, more taken with it once he was near enough to see the gold trimming, and didn’t even bother to ask the shopkeeper for his help in removing it from its forgotten shelf. Immediately, he started searching out the trousers that would complete the look, while behind him, Thomas reappeared in the latest, blue coat.

“Well, this is better,” Thomas said, with something almost approaching optimism. He certainly seemed much less uncomfortable than he had at the start. “I think it would suit you better, though. Blue looks well on you.”

At first, the rouge that hit Jimmy’s cheeks seemed to be a continued issue with the climate and his tweeds, but they’d been in the darkened shop for at least twenty minutes, where it was significantly cooler without the raw sun beating down upon them. But he was very assuredly boiled -- far more than he’d been mere seconds ago -- and it was with startling clarity that Jimmy realised he’d been undone by the flattery. The realisation was so acute, Jimmy had no idea what to do about it, and instead tried to play it off by hurriedly shoving the dark green ensemble he’d found into Thomas’s arms. “This seems more up your street,” he explained quickly. 

Thomas took the clothes and glanced at them. “Hm,” he said simply, but Jimmy thought (or imagined) that he sounded rather approving. He went back into the changing room and shut the purple curtain behind him, obscuring himself from Jimmy’s view.

“Finally,” lamented Lady A when Thomas pulled the curtain back once more, stepping out in the dark green frock with a lot more of his usual swagger. 

Jimmy, meanwhile, was too flabbergasted by the sight of Thomas to even formulate words. He had the practical understanding that Thomas managed to pull off most fashions he wore, but none of that had prepared him for the way Thomas looked in that indescribable shade of green. Even as Thomas fussed with the unfamiliar details of how to wear the style, Jimmy noticed for the first time how firm and sure Thomas’s long fingers were, or the way the heat had unravelled some of his slick, black hair, which fell over his forehead as he bent to inspect the coat’s buttons. The taper of the trousers clung to Thomas’s legs in a way that gave Jimmy a fresh appreciation for his calves. Something about the whole picture speared right through Jimmy, impressing upon him the sort of significance that he had (until then) only thought of in books. But it was just the same design as all those moments, like he’d just escaped everything he’d believed to discover something different about the world. 

In the end, the most profound thing he could think of to say was, “That’s the one,” while his brain swam in spirals that were slowly flattening with an evolved understanding: Thomas was handsome -- and Jimmy loved him. 

Thomas smiled at Jimmy, which did nothing to calm the swirling in Jimmy’s head. “I think so too.” He glanced down at himself once more before adding, “I haven’t let you off for snappin’ those buttons off me waistcoat, though.” But he didn’t sound very angry.

“Well,” Jimmy drawled as his eyes swung around the shop once more. He was noticing more and more apparel that he suddenly  _ needed  _ to purchase for Thomas all at once, straight away. It was like his heart was beating in his wallet, which he palmed inside his pocket like doing so would settle the urge. “We could just get you another one to go with that.” 

“Nah,” Thomas said. “I think it’s your turn now.” He leaned briefly behind the curtain before approaching Jimmy with the blue outfit he had tried on earlier, pressing it against Jimmy’s chest. “Will you try it on?”

“Er -- no, ‘sfine,” Jimmy mumbled, his hand lifting to take the coat and trousers but his eyes not straying from Thomas’s until he went on, “Let’s just get them.” He suddenly needed, more than anything else, to get back out on the street again, with an irrational thought that he’d be able to  _ breathe _ out there -- and so he paid for his own and Thomas’s new clothes in a daze, even consenting to put money down for whatever Anstruther plonked down on the counter. Once this was done, Jimmy clutched his new purchase like it was the only thing that made sense and hurried out of the shop door.

“Not like you not to try somethin’ on before you buy it,” Thomas observed conversationally as he caught up.

Jimmy tried not to look at him. Thomas was still in his brand-new outfit, looking grand and almost regal, and certainly much more comfortable than he had been in his suit, which was now folded under his arm. It was too much. “Would you keep an eye on  _ her _ for a bit?” he blurted out, jerking his head at Lady A and not looking any higher than Thomas’s (beautiful) neck. “I have to go and -- do something.” He was backing away before Thomas even replied, desperate for some space, terrified that he was going to do something stupid.

“‘Course I will,” Thomas said softly. His tone made Jimmy shiver, even in the Indian heat. “You have to go alone?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said shortly, turning on his heel as he added, “Won’t be long.”

“Train leaves at one!” Thomas called after him. “Make sure you’re at the train station!”

Jimmy strode away as quickly as he could. Part of him hoped that these terrible  _ feelings _ would be left behind him, with Thomas -- but no such luck. It was as if Thomas’s shadow was attached to his heels and following him down the street. It was a funny thing, because the onslaught of stress was uncannily familiar, like he’d been bottling it up for ages and it had finally exploded from its confines. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he knew he needed a drink. A strong one.

Luckily, he was quick to find a pub, and hurried inside like he was trying to slide into a narrow, hidden crack that no one else would notice. The pub was thankfully dark, illuminated mostly by the hideous sunlight that stamped itself through the windowpanes and drew bright squares on the floor. His wallet was out before he’d even approached the bar, and through a conversation he barely even remembered having, had exchanged money for a glass of whiskey. He tossed his package of newly-purchased clothing onto the stool beside him, crushed a cheek in hand and nursed the burning liquor like it would numb everything to do with Thomas. It was a disappointment to find that the beverage only seemed to inflate the image of him, clarifying that he’d had those same thoughts so often, he’d only been used to them. He brooded morosely. 

A whiskey and a half later, it hadn’t improved. He wished he could just stop thinking, realising that he’d just spent his whole life battling fear. The only real difference was that now he’d suddenly become awake -- which, he mused over the final swallow of his current drink -- was just being alive. God, he wished he could just turn everything in his brain off, to sit in silence and not be bothered.

He signalled for a third. 

“Think you might be set, lad,” the barman said, eyeing the droop in Jimmy’s posture.

“I ain’t a lad. I’m grown,” Jimmy hissed, forcefully plunking a handful of change onto the counter. “An’ I’m a payin’ customer.” 

“I don’t want trouble,” the barman frowned. He made no move for the bottle, which only incensed Jimmy further. “You might need to move along.” The few patrons occupying the length of the bar perked at the bartender’s rather abrupt command, already anticipating a bit of drunken entertainment. 

“I’m perfectly in control,” Jimmy snapped, though it was hard to know if the words were directed at the barman, or some other abstract, abused thought drifting through his mind. Regardless, his statement was contradicted by the imbalanced way he shifted on his stool, causing it to rock dangerously as Jimmy tried to scoot it across the floor. 

“I don’t think it matters what you think,” the barman said, crossing his arms authoritatively. “It’s my pub, and I say it’s time for you to go.” Then, he added the one word that he shouldn’t have -- the one that kicked Jimmy’s attitude into overdrive: “ _ Boy _ .” 

At once, Jimmy was enraged. He snatched up his money, albeit poorly, and then flung his ice-filled glass in the general direction of the bartender, steaming with rage. “I ain’t a  _ boy _ !” he screamed, barely able to get off his stool without tripping over his own feet. He grabbed for his new clothes, his brain suddenly screeching and wailing with all the noise he’d been trying to drown out. He was so angry, he barely noticed the other patrons as some of them took a rough hold of him and started to usher him towards the door. Jimmy kicked and flailed, satisfied to hear the crack of someone’s nose as his elbow flew backwards. Then the door was being wrenched open, and his eyes were being burned by the relentless sun as a number of hands gave him a final, grandiose shove out into the street. 

“Bloody Englishmen!” someone shouted after him just before the door was slammed closed in his wake. Jimmy retched, ill from the booze and the sudden return of the extreme heat. He clutched the package to his stomach and bent over to vomit, soiling the tips of his two-toned shoes with gritty brown. 

“ _ Jimmy _ ?” he heard in an incredulous voice, and Jimmy closed his eyes, his throat burning.

_ No no no no no _ , he thought on a loop.  _ Not him. Anyone but him. _

“Jimmy, what on earth -- you’ve only been gone -- here --” Jimmy refused to look round, somehow thinking that if he refused to acknowledge the situation, it wouldn’t be real. After a second, however, a handkerchief appeared. “To wipe your mouth.”

Reluctantly, Jimmy closed his hand around the fabric, though he was apparently very bad at manipulating it on his own. Thomas seemed to be more capable of cleaning the grime off his chin. 

“How vulgar,” Lady A wrinkled her nose. “What on earth have you been doing?”

“I were  _ hopin’  _ to save it until I could spew it on you,” Jimmy sneered rudely, not particularly proud to be found by anyone in such a circumstance. He normally held his liquor so well, and it was beyond embarrassing to be caught stumbling around like a schoolboy sneaking wine out of his father’s cellar. 

“This is why proper sorts keep their drinks at home,” Lady Anstruther sniffed, casing a disdainful glare down her cheek at Jimmy, who was still doubled over. “And you,” she went on, throwing a comment at Thomas, whose hand seemed to be just short of landing on Jimmy’s back; “You’re just encouraging him. With me, he would have  _ never  _ been so crass. Practically a little gentleman with the right influences.” She gave Thomas a look that indicated that she thought him to be the absolute guilty party. 

“I’m not  _ little _ ,” Jimmy summoned enough gumption to shout at her. “I’m not a  _ boy _ !” He felt like he’d been screaming the same words on loop for the entire day. “So stop treatin’ me like one, right?” 

Thomas backed off sheepishly, and Jimmy had to swallow the urge to immediately scream that he hadn’t meant  _ Thomas _ , that  _ Thomas  _ was the only thing keeping him from drowning.

“It’s half past twelve,” Thomas pointed out quietly. “We ought to be getting to the station.”

This announcement seemed to slap the irritation out of Jimmy, like he was happy to have something to focus on that wasn’t Lady A. He straightened, albeit with shaky balance, and started stomping off in a direction that seemed correct. “Well, let’s not stand here and collect dust, right?” he commanded the other two, like he had been in control of the whole situation from the jump. 

“You were nearly collectin’ policemen,” Thomas ribbed, ushering Lady A along with them. Her nose was still wrinkled in disgust at Jimmy’s vomit as she passed by the chunky puddle left on the street.

Jimmy ignored the comment and rushed ahead, secretly relieved that he had chosen the correct way. He was admittedly still a bit woozy from all the alcohol, despite emptying his stomach of the worst bit. And then there was the unrelenting image of Thomas in that damnable green suit, which kept flitting in and out of his peripheral no matter how hard he tried to keep himself focused otherwise. Butterflies continued to swarm in his gut, but they most certainly weren’t anything to do with how much he’d had to drink. He almost hated that he had come to a rather clear understanding of what the true meaning of it all was.

Jimmy soon surrendered the lead in concession to the fact that Thomas clearly had a better idea of where they were than he did. He stumped along half a pace behind, frowning and fretting, and was almost surprised when they arrived at a train platform. It was probably the right one; Thomas was good at that sort of thing.

By some cruel twist of irony, when the train pulled into the station the conductor who was to see them all on board was the same one that Jimmy had seen Thomas eyeing up earlier. Jimmy watched him, trying to figure out what Thomas had liked about him, though Thomas didn’t seem to be paying the young man much attention now. It suddenly occurred to Jimmy that he had been jealous.

_ Don’t be ridiculous _ , Jimmy ordered himself with a screwed up expression that probably looked ludicrous to everyone around him.  _ You don’t get jealous: other people get jealous of you. That’s the way it’s always been and it’s worked out well for you so far.  _

Jimmy then nodded to himself, proud to have come to such an obvious conclusion, though he might have guessed that such grand gestures made the story that much more hollow. He paused, realising that both Thomas and Lady Anstruther were looking at him strangely -- Thomas out of uncertainty, and Lady A with a shade of sourness. 

“What?!” Jimmy snipped with a leap in his tone he hoped would overshadow all the radical ideas filling his head. He practically rocked off his heels into a little jump with the indignation of it all, certain that everyone in the whole station would be able to see the way Jimmy’s inner self was peeling that green coat off Thomas’s shoulders with an air of seduction. Thomas, unaware of the thoughts in Jimmy’s head, pulled out his book.

“You look like a drunkard,” Lady A inserted her unwelcome opinion at Jimmy’s demeanor as they started to herd themselves onto the carriage. Thomas walked ahead, oblivious to the comment, as he inched forward with his nose delved into one of the Poirot novels. 

Privately, Jimmy was a little annoyed that he’d bought another book for Thomas at all, if it meant that Thomas’s attention could be so easily swayed by it. Then he caught himself resenting Thomas’s lack of focus on him, again frustrated that it meant anything to him at all. Worse still, was the knowledge that it had  _ always  _ meant something to him. He took it out on Lady A: “And you look like a  _ bitch _ ,” he swore at her before stamping onto the carriage, eliciting a very indignant gasp from everyone within earshot -- except Thomas. 

“How  _ dare  _ you, James,” Lady A hissed, holding a delicate hand over her breast like she’d just been knifed violently, still with her feet planted on the platform. “That is exactly the sort of behaviour that ladies find unsavoury. I  _ know  _ you know better than that, darling.” 

Glaring over at Lady A, Jimmy could only fight another round of sickness as it roiled deep in the pit of his belly. Despite all they’d been through, this was the first time Jimmy found himself truly disgusted by her, bothered by everything from her makeup to the facetious wedding band that still glittered against her black frock. Going so far out of his way to strip her of all the material possessions she held so dear only highlighted the disquieting fact that Jimmy had learned to place just as much value on the same things. He might have ripped the pearls from Lady A’s neck only to lavish them around Thomas instead, but now it had dawned upon Jimmy that it was the only measure he had for even the most basic of affections. All the silk and cufflinks in the world would never win Thomas over in the same way, Jimmy realised -- especially as the gentle press of Thomas’s lips against his in the middle of that fateful night returned to him. A parade of gifts hadn’t been what had made Thomas’s heart stammer after him then -- he understood that now; it certainly wouldn’t restore love lost all these years later.

_ Fashionably late to the fuckin’ party -- as usual, Kent _ , Jimmy mentally berated himself as they moved onwards through the carriage. The conductor led the way with the majority of their luggage, and Jimmy wished he could erase the image of Thomas peeking up over the pages of  _ his  _ Poirot book (dammit!) to steal glances at the Indian man in uniform. His very presence, indifferent as it was, only made Jimmy’s blood boil hotter.  _ But just barely _ , he finished acerbically.  

Jimmy had come to his mental revelation around the time Thomas had selected an empty compartment, and was moving inside with the help of that blasted conductor. In the subsequent shuffle to find their seats, Lady A made a slinky attempt to touch the small of Jimmy’s back. The very subtle act of possession triggered a riot of emotion and memory within Jimmy, calling to mind everything that Lady A had done to cripple his insides. He jerked so violently, Thomas and the conductor had to stop and stare, and drew even more attention to himself when he shouted at the top of his voice: “I am  _ not  _ like you, alright? I’ll never be like  _ you _ !” 

He didn’t care about the commotion he was making. He’d bought their tickets and just as much right to cause a scene as the next person, didn’t he? It soothed the unpleasant sensation of a heart that was dying, anyway. There had been moments on this journey where Jimmy had been reasonably sure that Thomas was still in love with him. But perhaps familiarity had bred contempt on Thomas’s part: perhaps the reality of being with Jimmy twenty-four hours a day had erased those more tender feelings, leaving a friendship that was as strong as ever, it was true, but none of the… none of the  _ lust _ that Thomas had once looked at him with.

Thomas smiled at the conductor as he thanked him and Jimmy kicked the bottom of the bench seating violently before he sat down opposite Thomas. The only slight consolation in the situation was that the conductor seemed to have no return interest in Thomas, though Thomas didn’t look awfully bothered as he relaxed in his seat, stretching out his long legs as best he could under the table. Anstruther seemed to have decided to ignore Jimmy’s moodiness and was settling herself carefully into her own seat next to Thomas. By contrast, Jimmy sat hunched up and tense, quashing the urge to pick his foot up and inspect his toes, which were smarting. The book that Thomas rested on the table to read seemed like a barrier in more ways than one.

Just for something to break the silence, Jimmy found himself saying, “Mum used to kiss my knees when I scraped ‘em.”

Though Thomas’s head remained bowed to his book, his eyes looked up, one eyebrow quirked. “You askin’?” he drawled, and  _ winked _ .

“ _ No _ !” Jimmy denied vehemently. “Shut up!”

He might have been talking to his own brain, which seemed unable to tear his focus away from the buttons on Thomas’s coat. He had never seen Thomas in so few layers before, apart from glimpses of him at the ship’s pool. He wasn’t quite sure whether Thomas was wearing an undershirt, but he thought probably not: Thomas would surely have taken the opportunity to shed it when he donned his new outfit. That meant that if the collar was undone, Jimmy would be able to see the ridge of Thomas’s clavicle.

Jimmy shifted in his seat, his face feeling hot. And if he unfastened that next button, he would see the top of Thomas’s chest, as much bare skin as had been on show in Thomas’s swimsuit. There had been dark hair visible out the top of it, Jimmy recalled. In a rush, Jimmy mentally unfastened every other button with the speed of thought, his imaginary self reaching out to push the front of the coat aside, tips of his fingers quivering against Thomas’s warm stomach, and --

But here he had to stop. He did not know what Thomas looked like underneath the coat, and it felt like a lie to picture it.


	17. Chapter 17

Thomas kept thinking that Jimmy was looking at him, but every time he glanced up, Jimmy’s attention was fixed apparently unwaveringly out of the train window. Nonetheless, the thought of it had him flustered, making it far easier to let himself be diverted by the view of the foreign country they passed through rather than to focus on  _ Murder on the Links _ .

It was when Thomas was watching a few thirsty trees speed by that he felt something on his ankle. He started slightly at the first contact, before realising that it was somebody’s foot tapping it. Anstruther was sitting next to Thomas, but he would have looked at Jimmy first anyway. His stomach flipped as he found Jimmy’s gaze.

Jimmy shot his eyes at Anstruther, then rolled them extravagantly.

Thomas offered him a sympathetic smile; Jimmy beamed back, the corners of his eyes crinkling, though he did not show any teeth. He seemed to have recovered from his nausea. The intensity of the smile made Thomas swallow, and he looked away. He had to search for any kind of distraction from Jimmy’s curious feet under the table, whose exploration around Thomas’s shoes and ankles were making Thomas’s stomach feel heavy. It didn’t even occur to him to worry about Jimmy getting muck on the bottoms of his new green trousers.

There was a moment of respite when Jimmy’s feet were withdrawn, a pause which only made it more shocking when Jimmy’s left foot in just a sock landed on top of his right. The heel pressed through Thomas’s shoe, the toes wriggled around his protruding ankle bone. With Lady A right beside him, Thomas’s only option was to pretend that nothing was happening. However, he was far from sure that he would have asked Jimmy to stop even if he had been able to.

Finding his foot being dragged across the floor between Jimmy’s crossed ankles, Thomas finally looked at Jimmy again. Jimmy was once again staring out of the train window, his expression muddled by the fist scrunching his cheek. Yet under the table, he held Thomas’s foot captive, the space between the bench seats so small that their knees were almost touching.

_ You already own my  _ **_heart_ ** , Thomas thought soppily.  _ There’s no need to keep my foot hostage. _

“A little restless, are we?” Thomas interjected, his voice sounding twice as loud as it ought to in the burgeoning silence of their compartment. He had been stuck on the same paragraph, rereading the same half a sentence, since Jimmy’s feet had engaged his. The contour of Jimmy’s soles around his toes burned through his footwear like they’d just been pulled out of a fire. Thomas was certain the quickening bump of his heart was loud enough that everyone on the carriage should have heard it. 

“Hm? What?” Jimmy rustled, his cat-like eyes darting away from the window and across the compartment for a flash of a moment. His feet continued to toy with Thomas’s almost as if it were a natural reflex he couldn’t control. 

“You just seem….” Thomas trailed off and folded his book around a placemarking thumb. Then he shrugged, trying to adequately explain himself with Lady A so close: “I don’t know,  _ distracted _ ,” Thomas finally managed to say, though he found his voice hollow and transparent. He winced inwardly, certain that he’d just given the whole game away before it had even got started. 

“Oh,” Jimmy hummed obtusely. “I were just thinkin’ about… um… the weather.” He still held his cheek in hand, staring out the window at the exotic landscape. Thomas wondered if all of that actually held that much wonder for Jimmy, or if he was just studying his own blank expression. It led him to the question of what was spooling around the cranking gears inside the blond’s skull. 

Thomas momentarily turned his attention to the window, humming at the clouds, which looked like nothing to him. Still, he tried to coax Jimmy out of his strange mood by saying, “It’s quite bright, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah, bright. Like the sun,” Jimmy mused, his gaze darting back over to Thomas for a precious second. He returned to the rushing scenery outside and switched topics: “How’s that book? Did I pick a good one?”

Taking a steadying breath, Thomas pulled his foot back towards him, away from Jimmy's, though he regretted it immediately. A brief flash of…  _ something… _ flickered across Jimmy's face. It was gone before Thomas could even begin to interpret it.

How tempting it was to put his foot back between Jimmys’ -- but it would be too strange now. Instead, Thomas gave his opinion on the book: “It's great. They're in France in this story. Hastings has his eye on an acrobat.”

Jimmy seemed ready to engage with Thomas at last, turning to meet his eye. The hand that had supported his head was laid on the table. “Yeah? If it’s an acrobat he’s got his eye on, he might struggle getting his  _ hand _ on her. Right?” He looked mischievously pleased with himself for the innuendo.

Thomas shook his head, smiling, while a tinkling laugh sounded from next to him.

The mirth drained from Jimmy's face as his eyes darted almost guiltily to Lady Anstruther. He seemed to withdraw into himself again; his posture drooped and his attention returned to the Indian countryside.

“Not one of your best,” said Lady A. The mingled possessiveness and put-down were clear.

“S’pose I'll find out later if he manages it,” Thomas said to Jimmy, ignoring her.

Jimmy gave him a brief, grateful nod.

“We'll get to Calcutta in a few hours,” Thomas added.

The prospect seemed to enthrall Jimmy, who perked up again and slid to the edge of his seat like an eager schoolboy. “D’ya think you’ll have finished the book by then?” he questioned Thomas with shining eyes. 

Slightly taken aback by the apparent delight emanating from Jimmy’s face, Thomas could only stare back with slightly parted lips and a crinkled brow. He could swear there was something almost  _ mischievous  _ in Jimmy’s behaviour, though it was quite impossible to know why. He ducked behind the pages with a slight lift of his hands, peeking at Jimmy over top whilst also keeping the flustered expression neatly hidden behind the book. “I-If you’re so intent on readin’ the thing, maybe keep it for yourself next time,” he stammered with an edge of panic; “It’s not particularly enjoyable to be rushed along, y’know.” 

“Oh, I weren’t tryin’ to imply anythin’ like  _ that _ ,” Jimmy inserted, blusteringly oblivious to any of the storms thundering within Thomas’s breast and upon his cheeks. Instead, Jimmy was busy trying to explain his concern away, a glare fixed very pointedly upon Lady A. “Frankly, I were just wonderin’ what the end is like,” Jimmy drawled; “Y’know, whether you like how it goes or not.” 

At this, Thomas glanced upwards. “You can see for yourself later -- no point in lettin’ me spoil things.”

“I don’t need to  _ read  _ it -- I just wanted to make sure it were satisfyin’ an’ all.” His eyes flicked over to Thomas and met Thomas’s gaze. They held the look as Thomas came to the slow realisation that Jimmy wasn’t particularly interested in the book, only in Thomas’s enjoyment of it. The thought was touching, and he felt himself blush. It somehow coloured every subsequent word he read. 

A quiet befell the compartment as the carriage swayed upon the tracks, the rhythm of the steam engine creating a sort of wistful lull over the trio. Thomas fell into his book deeply, and practically rewrote his surroundings with the excitement of the literary world in his hands. He couldn’t have been sure how much time sailed by with each turned over page, though he was certain he heard the serenade of Jimmy’s snoring every once in a while. Even Lady Anstruther was relatively tame, and only entered his peripheral when she adjusted -- and readjusted -- her hair and her hat. Thomas paid it no mind, continuing in this way until he found his thumb attempting to flick pages that had run out. He blinked, almost as if he was readjusting to the cloying grasp of reality, where the truth of his lot and his affections were nowhere near as fantastical as they came off in books.

He sighed, staring down at the final leaf in the book, practically wishing for a new story to appear there and take him away. It was almost mystifying when the desire seemed to actually come to pass. For there, right on that last page, was a slurry of rushed lettering and a large, looping  _ ‘J’  _ that reminded Thomas so very much of Jimmy’s personal mark. It was only with more fine tuned reading that he realised it actually  _ was _ . 

_ Thomas _ , it read in Jimmy’s hasty scrawl.

_ Thomas, I do hope you know how much it means to me that you’d stick with me on this fool’s errand. But if I could perhaps give you a little more excitement in life, then I will consider it all a worthwhile success -- even if it meant living through all the nasty decisions I’ve made regarding you. I hope you’ll remember all these adventures for all your living days, come rain or come shine. And that you’ll think of me always, whether we are near or far. _

_ (Most) sincerely, _ _   
_ _ Jame _ _ Jimmy  _

Thomas gazed at the words for a long time, willing his mind not to go to places it shouldn’t with the phrase  _ a little more excitement in life _ . He wondered what Jimmy meant by  _ nasty decisions _ , mentally casting back over the time they had known each other in search of moments of choice -- moments where they might perhaps have gone another way. His only idea was that this was some oblique apology for that year they never spoke of, where Jimmy had lashed out at Thomas whenever he possibly could.

Though unclear, the depth of feeling in the note affected Thomas deeply. He worried constantly about being  _ too much _ for Jimmy -- worried that he would one day scare the man away if he realised how utterly Thomas adored him. This little letter, scratched forever in ink, was proof of Jimmy’s regard for him.

He lifted his chin to try to search Jimmy’s face for a clue, but was instead startled when he realised that Jimmy had beaten him to the quick. He was studying Thomas’s face with a precision Thomas was unsure he had ever caught in the blond’s usually carefree facade. Perched on the edge of his seat, Jimmy was reminiscent of an eager dog who was waiting for his master to reward him for some sort of obtuse behavior, though Thomas couldn’t pin down quite what that was. It was funny that through his love of crime novels, Thomas had become particularly crafty and sharp, and yet, when it came to everything Jimmy Kent, even his most sly inclinations often left Thomas quite in the dark, spun round and stupid with his ridiculous affection for the younger man. Was Jimmy waiting for words of some kind? Or perhaps he was simply replicating Thomas in another clever show of smoke and mirrors. Thomas never could tell. 

But in the golden Indian sun, which burned through the shade in the window and upon their cheeks, Thomas was invigorated with a sort of cleansing boldness -- like he’d inherited the fiery power of Agni himself. His veins pulsing with lightning, Thomas’s lips began to move with divine importance. His crazed heart pummeled the inside of his ribs like a gatling gun, but he wanted to bravely plumb for an indication of what the note meant -- anything at all. 

“The end was very good,” said Thomas as he snapped the book closed.

And, with the subtle harmony of a budding new moon, Jimmy’s lips bloomed into the softest of smiles.

\--

By the time they pulled into Calcutta, Thomas was sick to the back teeth of the incessant rocking motion of the train and almost wistful for the slow swaying of the ship. As they made their way towards the station exit, Thomas spotted a noticeboard with the train timetables on and stopped in front of it.

The others pulled up next to him, one either side, examining the tables without much interest. Jimmy leaned his shoulder against Thomas's. Thomas's heart fluttered.

“Where to next, Thomas?” Jimmy asked.

“I thought you were in charge,” Thomas countered, suppressing a stutter only with a great effort of will.

Jimmy looked at him, and Thomas turned his head to see that he was wearing a puzzled frown. “We're a team,” Jimmy said, as though Thomas was being slow. “Always a team.”

Their faces were very close together. Thomas swallowed and looked away, and when he glanced back Jimmy was smiling softly at him.

“Hate to break up the lovers, but if we're going, let's get on with it,” drawled Lady Anstruther in a bored voice.

Thomas jumped guiltily, but Jimmy only leaned around him to say dismissively: “Shut up, you old bag.”

The blunt rudeness seemed to surprise Lady A, despite Jimmy's attitude towards her the whole journey. Perhaps it was finally sinking in that he  _ really _ meant it. Her eyes narrowed. “You two seem _ very _ close.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy boasted forcefully. “Thomas is my _ best _ friend.”

There was a hand gripping Thomas tightly, not quite around his wrist but not quite holding his hand either. Thomas could only fix his eyes on the noticeboard and pray that his cheeks weren't as red as they felt. Jimmy was going to be the death of him. Thomas's body shielded the touch from Lady Anstruther’s sight, so as long as he kept his cool, she did not have to know.

“I don't think we should get another train,” Thomas said as calmly as he could.

“Alright!” Jimmy agreed enthusiastically, looking delighted that Thomas was helping make the decision. He let go of Thomas and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “What, then?”

Thomas shrugged. “Let's just wander around for a bit. See what Calcutta has to offer.”

A glance at Lady A dampened Jimmy's brightness; he looked as though he was trying to stuff down his happiness out of her reach and notice. “As you like,” he said aloofly, and led the way out of the station.

The mercurial moods shifting through Jimmy had Thomas in a spin, never sure what the other man was thinking. The trip must be wearing on him; Thomas could imagine how difficult it was to spend such an extended length of time with someone who had caused the loss of a job. Jimmy seemed to think of her as some kind of bogeyman, the root of all his ills. His edginess was always palpable, but there seemed to have been a different shape to it recently. On the train, when Lady A was using the bathroom, Thomas had asked Jimmy if he was ready to stop yet. Jimmy had been quiet for a few seconds, before saying, “Nearly. We're nearly there. I'd still like to make it to Shanghai.”

They roamed aimlessly around the city for a while, Jimmy and Anstruther sniping at each other occasionally and Thomas doing his best not to look at Jimmy too much. Before they alighted, Jimmy had changed into the clothes he had bought on their stopover. Though they weren't quite a perfect fit, the embroidered teal only highlighted the warm tones of his skin. He had tanned slightly darker on their journey.

As Jimmy ambled ahead in his fresh wardrobe, Thomas was struck with the oddity of being so far east while so many familiar sights and sounds floated all around them. Calcutta was truly a jewel of the empire, which Thomas couldn’t help but feel a slight sting of pride over. His Labor Party inclinations might have taken issue with England’s shameless occupation of half the world, but the British man that amalgamated the rest of his person liked to see the progress that hailed from the funny little island he called home. 

“Like a little maharadjah, isn’t he,” Lady Anstruther clucked from alongside Thomas. She was drifting next to him with a rather disconcerting attitude -- one which he couldn’t help but shudder at when he realised it was directly attached to Jimmy’s backside. “You know,” she continued with her snobbish drawl, “that boy was my old chauffeur's greasemonkey when I found him. Such a lovely little thing had no business being hidden away in a garage -- not with a face like that.” 

“Isn’t it fortunate you’ve been gifted with such  _ vision _ ,” Thomas retorted, his hand tightening around the handle of his luggage case. He had a hard time imagining Jimmy ever ignorant of his own natural beauty, especially considering how doggedly he deployed those attributes as a sort of offensive defense. If anything, Thomas thought the deeper puzzle was the tapestry of flaws that existed beneath Jimmy’s gleaming varnish. A quiver in his belly matched the amplified reminder of all the chinks that made Thomas love Jimmy so deeply. 

“He thought he was too short to be noticed in a proper house,” Lady A sniffed, ignorant of Thomas’s inward desires, even though her eyes continued to rove. “But I’m not so bothered by the typical conventions we have for these things.” 

“Really, now,” Thomas frowned, certain to keep his tone as even as possible. He couldn’t help but wonder about the truth beneath her flippancy. Thomas wasn’t so oblivious that he’d completely missed the old tension that kept rearing up between Jimmy and Lady A. “I suppose it’s fortunate that weren’t much of a problem for the Crawleys, neither,” he sniped, and then returned to the moment he’d first laid eyes upon Jimmy. He’d been turned so inside out in that very first heartbeat, it was impossible to ignore the difference in his old life and the one that was colored by Jimmy Kent. 

“I don’t recall your  _ employer  _ being particularly gracious to darling little James,” Lady A replied, her lips curled into a nasty little smile. It was obvious she was trying to harpoon Thomas by simultaneously implicating Lord Grantham’s angry termination of Jimmy’s time at Downton and the idea that Thomas was still just as strangled by those same cuffs. “James deserves silk sheets, tweed suits and other fine things,” Lady Anstruther added with another uncomfortable glance in Jimmy’s direction; “Things  _ your sort  _ could never think to provide.” 

Thomas seethed. It didn’t matter if she was trying to make a comment about her interpretation of his sexuality or his station: both were equally disparaging. It had take a full lifetime for him to accept that neither of those things would change for him, and he wasn’t about to let some disgraced dowager make him feel small for either. “In case you’ve not noticed,” Thomas decided to remind her; “Jimmy has become capable of providing  _ himself  _ with all that -- no help from you, thanks very much. Or perhaps you’ve somehow forgotten that along this whole route of his.”

“You say it like any of that affects  _ you _ ,” Lady A retorted, frustratingly inconsequential about anything Thomas had to say. 

“It just might do,” Thomas grumbled. He sucked in Anstruther’s profile, trying very carefully to unravel what sorts of plots were ruminating behind her face. It was hard for him to put his finger right on the pulse of it, but he kept getting the sense that there was an element to the story he was missing. Lady A clearly behaved as if Jimmy somehow owed her something, while Jimmy proceeded as if he’d been horrifically wronged. Job security was one thing -- Thomas had personal experience with that -- but for someone like Jimmy, it shouldn’t have been the setback he treated it as. If Thomas didn’t know better, he might have suspected there was some sort of  _ fear  _ that powered the whole thing. It certainly would have fit with the odd jumpiness that had tagged Jimmy during Lady A’s fateful visit to the Abbey -- like he’d known he was walking right into a trap. Thomas had let all that ebb away on a tide of bad luck, but as he continued to survey his adversary, he began to wonder if it hadn’t been quite so simple. 

_ Jimmy certainly isn’t simple _ , was the only conclusion he was able to arrive at. 

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts, he didn’t realise that Jimmy had stopped walking until he crashed directly into him. Nothing else in the tide of motion around them even flinched at their collision, but Thomas was completely on fire, dizzy with the head-to-toe contact that had just graced his entire form. He wanted to fling his arms around Jimmy and cry out in frustration, ‘Oh, won’t you ever know that I’m just horribly in love with you? I’m in  _ love  _ with you!’

Of course, he did none of that, and quickly disengaged himself from Jimmy before anyone else had a chance to think he was being untoward. He at least had the gumption to press his elbow into the bend of Jimmy’s arm, standing side-by-side with him as he stared out upon the overlook Jimmy had just stumbled over. Spread out before them was the Hugli River, infested with barges, punts and steamers of all kinds. It was a truly phenomenal sight, and invoked a sort of boyish wonder in Jimmy -- and even Thomas, as well -- as they watched the bustling trade route. For Thomas, he was a bit more awash in amazement that human ingenuity had brought them this far, and was struck, for the first time since the adventure had begun, with the realisation that the sort of marvels he’d only glimpsed in books were not just farfetched escapes. Freedom had become  _ real _ , he mentally intoned with a sharp breath; the world of his imagination was  _ real _ .

“I wonder if it goes all the way to China,” Jimmy breathed. He was shading his view with a trim salute and peering into the distance like he might be able to make Shanghai out in the distance. He turned to Thomas with an excitement that had been rare to find back at Downton: “Wouldn’t it be grand to ride on a real river boat?” 

Thomas cleared his throat. “Mm, yes, but….” He trailed off, distracted by the softness in Jimmy’s face -- something he  _ could  _ trace back to their time at Downton, strangely enough. He wondered how long Jimmy had been looking at him like that, and why it had taken him this long to notice. He coughed again, this time making  a show of his fist beating upon his sternum. “I believe this river connects to the Ganges -- which only doubles back to the Bengal Bay,” he informed the others, his ears red. It made him so self-conscious to find Jimmy hanging on his dictionary tidbits like he was a kind of oracle. 

“Oh dear, sounds like we’ve reached the end of the line,” Lady A inserted unhelpfully. She sounded particularly gleeful.

“Not quite. We can still sail round the peninsula and into the South China Sea,” Thomas was quick to retort in a similar tone. He glanced quickly at Jimmy, whose expression was creased with uncertainty. “An’ if we really want, we can stop over in Hong Kong and take Jimmy’s river boat tour up to the Yangtze,” Thomas finished with a little thrill. He very much enjoyed catching stupid people in their own idiocy and then finishing the job with a round of his own gatling gun intelligence. “We only fought a war over it,” he added with the flourish of an iced decoration upon a cake. 

“Let’s do that,” Jimmy agreed happily, though Thomas was struck with the flattering notion that Jimmy had already forgotten the details of his plan, and was simply willing to follow along, trusting that Thomas would take them where they wanted to go while taking account of Jimmy’s idea of fun. “Now we just gotta choose a boat.”

They walked along the shoreline a little way, with Jimmy especially taking particular care to examine all the boats they passed. Lady Anstruther kept pointing out the more finely polished and classy-looking vessels, but the one that finally made Jimmy stop dead and point excitedly at it, searching eagerly for Thomas’s gaze and approval, was a small one with a waxed-fabric domed cover that made it look something like a floating tent. It was the only one of its kind that Thomas could see on the whole river, which he suspected was what had made Jimmy choose it.

“Fine by me,” Thomas agreed, aiming for nonchalance even though he was privately very interested in the boat, which was like nothing he had ever seen before.

Immediately, Jimmy surged forward to speak to the man who was sitting inside the boat, puffing away on a clay pipe.

“Are you taking passengers?” Jimmy called to him.

The man looked past them, onto the shore, and shouted a word or two. He nodded seriously at their expectant looks, but said nothing more.

A moment later, a young man who looked Chinese emerged from the people bustling along the river. He and the boatman shared a few incomprehensible words before the young man looked at Jimmy and said, “Yes?”

“Where are you headed?” Jimmy asked, looking admirably at ease with the situation in his Indian clothes. “We want to get to Hong Kong.”

The young man had a short exchange with the boatman, whom Thomas guessed was his father. The man spoke with his pipe still in his mouth, looking supremely unconcerned by anything. Despite not speaking a lick of Chinese, Thomas could tell he was a man who did not waste words.

“You come, your own food, we share fish, and you pay,” the younger man relayed to Jimmy. The two of them haggled over the price before Jimmy handed over a small sum, then sent Thomas out to buy some food for them all.

“How long will it take?” Thomas had checked before he left.

“A week, perhaps,” the young man said. “Leave one hour. We do not wait.”

A hurried search of Calcutta’s sprawling riverside market eventually turned up two large loaves of dark crusty bread, some salty cheese, and various other foodstuffs that should serve to feed them for the next week. It amused him to wonder if Anstruther had ever eaten such simple fare in her life, accustomed as she was to first-class treatment and fine dining.

Once back at the boat, Thomas found his travelling companions already on board. There were two long wooden benches in the main, covered, part of the boat. Jimmy was lounged on one side, closer to the shore than Lady A behind him. He looked serenely relaxed, his arms spread along the simple plank seat-back, but he sprang to his feet when he saw Thomas. He took the paper bags full of food, quickly stowing them under the bench seating, before offering Thomas his hand to help him step from the land onto the shallow-bottomed boat. Thomas hesitated before taking it, his unwillingness to fall in the water overcoming his caution against touching Jimmy. The heat meant Jimmy’s hand was a little sweaty.

The moment he had safely transferred to the boat, Thomas let go, though he would very much have liked to hold on -- and not only because he hadn’t quite found his sea legs. He deliberately sat across from Jimmy, partly to balance the boat’s weight, mostly to avoid any possibility of looking unseemly.

Jimmy leaned towards him. “Jiāng Mǐn said we’d be off as soon as you got back. They’ve been pickin’ up stuff for tradin’ an’ that.”

“Jiāng...?”

Jimmy nodded at the young man sitting next to Thomas. Jiāng Mǐn was watching them intently; Thomas gave him an awkward smile.

“Gāng Xiānshēng, you call,” Jiāng Mǐn said, pointing at the boatman. “My father.” He repeated the name many times as Thomas and Jimmy copied, trying to get the hang of the pronunciation, while Lady A looked loftily across the river and Gāng Xiānshēng, still puffing away on his pipe, chuckled at their efforts. Jiāng Mǐn went on, haltingly, to explain that Jiāng was their family name, and Xiānshēng was the Chinese version of ‘Mr.’ -- but that the names he had given them were the ones they should use.

Meanwhile, Gāng Xiānshēng got carefully to his feet and took hold of the pole at the back of the boat. “Xiǎo Mǐn!” he said sharply.

Jiāng Mǐn jumped up at once, crossing onto the shore to untie the rope holding them steady before stepping back on board. His father began to haul on the single paddle at the back of the sampan, swaying along with the sideways motion like he was a part of the sea itself.

Jimmy gave Thomas a wide-eyed grin. Anstruther was looking nervously over the side of the sampan. Meanwhile, Thomas relaxed into the seat and alternated between watching Gāng Xiānshēng’s effortless sculling and watching the shore retreat to a distance of a hundred yards or so before sliding past them, a colourful, live-action moving picture.

Before too long, Jimmy started rummaging through the paper bags of food Thomas had acquired. He pulled out one of the loaves of dark bread and waved it uncertainly at their hosts, but they both declined and Jiāng Mǐn retrieved some of their own food from under the seat. So Jimmy broke the bread in half and then tore the half into three large squashed pieces, giving one each to Thomas and Lady A.

“And what is  _ this _ ?” she demanded.

“Bread,” Jimmy said simply, before taking an enormous bite.

“Oh,” Thomas said, mock-innocently. “I suppose you've never had working-class bread before?”

Jimmy's eyes widened at Thomas. Though his expression did not change, Thomas could tell that there was something approving - excited - about it. Anything that pit himself and Thomas against Lady A seemed to delight him, especially when it was Thomas who initiated it.

Jimmy looked at Anstruther. “None o’ that dainty white stuff now. You've gotta slum it with the poor boys.” He tore off another massive bite with his teeth to punctuate the remark.

Smirking to himself, Thomas looked away as they began bickering, catching sight of Jiāng Mǐn staring at them with deep interest as he tried to keep up with what they were saying. He'd never get it, Thomas thought -- what Jimmy and Anstruther were saying to each other was about far more than the words they exchanged.


	18. Chapter 18

How had Thomas  _ coped  _ with this, Jimmy wondered. It was hell. It was awful. Who'd ever be in love? And Thomas had been in love with him for  _ years _ . At least, Jimmy thought he had been. It was hard to be sure. Maybe Thomas himself wasn't even sure. Had that kiss, so long ago, been something he did out of love, or had it only been lust? Thomas’s actions afterwards, particularly looking back as someone who knew Thomas rather better than he had back then, made Jimmy think that Thomas had loved him even then. And he had still loved Jimmy a year later, when he had protected Jimmy from the muggers.

This was where things became less clear. Once they had become friends… who knew? Thomas was hard to read, sometimes. Even for Jimmy.

By near-nightfall, he had talked himself halfway to hell and back, at first convinced that the pained look on Thomas's face when he had helped Jimmy go to Anstruther that time (and how he regretted that now) was proof of love, then convinced that it spoke only of Thomas's wish for someone of his own more generally. He knew Thomas was lonely. Even with Jimmy, Thomas was lonely, because Jimmy… Jimmy wasn't…

Jiāng Mǐn snuffled quietly but suddenly, throwing Jimmy's thoughts off. The Chinese youth was sleeping on the floor of the boat, between Jimmy and Anstruther on one bench seat and Thomas on the other. Gāng Xiānshēng was still sculling the single paddle at the back. Anstruther was dozing on the seat and Thomas was looking contentedly around at the sea and the shore, from which they never strayed far.

Gāng Xiānshēng said something in Mandarin. The old boatman made himself understood by waving Jimmy and Thomas over to him. The two of them went, exchanging confused glances as they balanced carefully on the boat. It was actually surprisingly stable, but neither of them quite trusted it yet.

Still in ponderous Chinese, Gāng Xiānshēng began to speak to them, more words than he had yet strung together since they had met. It was a minute or two before Gāng Xiānshēng physically moved Jimmy’s hands onto the paddle and demonstrated the sculling movement, which was the first time Jimmy realised that he was teaching them to -- sail? row? -- he wasn’t sure of the terminology. Gāng Xiānshēng pointed at the darkening shore and made a motion with his hands that seemed to indicate they should keep to the same distance from it.

After barely a handful of strokes, Gāng Xiānshēng nodded solemnly at Jimmy and went to sit down on the seat at the edge of the boat, on the opposite side to Anstruther. He tucked his clay pipe carefully away in an inside pocket and promptly fell asleep.

“Er…” Jimmy said vaguely, hesitating in his movements.

“Well I guess he’s done for the day,” Thomas said dryly. He lit up a cigarette and began smoking unconcernedly.

Struck with the urge to impress him, Jimmy hauled on the paddle as best he could, mimicking Gāng Xiānshēng to the best of his ability. To his own surprise, it actually seemed to be working. Just about.

He played it cool and said nothing, but he couldn’t help a few furtive glances up at Thomas to check his reaction.

Thomas continued to look unconcerned.

It showed a level of trust in Jimmy, anyhow. Or so Jimmy told himself. 

A sudden notion occurred to Jimmy, which he tried to quash, but the effort was only just enough to keep his excitement as an odd pain in the front of his chest. “Your turn,” he said, hoping his voice was steady. He stepped back to leave a tiny space between himself and the paddle.

“Only ‘cause you’re already bored,” Thomas said fondly, but he stepped forward anyway, standing near the end of the pole like he was trying to avoid getting too close to Jimmy.

As far as Jimmy was concerned, there was no such thing as ‘too close’ for he and Thomas. With a rush of bravery leant by the violet sky, Jimmy put his hands on Thomas’s hips from behind and shifted him back a step. “Y’have to stand there.” He trailed one hand up Thomas’s torso and down his arm, taking hold of his forearm to move his hand onto the pole -- Thomas had let go in surprise when Jimmy touched him.

They were so close that when Jimmy breathed in, he could smell Thomas’s aftershave and sweat, a scent that ought to have been unpleasant but somehow wasn’t. Clad in that green coat that had been Jimmy’s final unravelling, Thomas was near enough that Jimmy could have leaned his forehead against one shoulder.

He swallowed.

“‘N’ then y’just, m- _ move _ ,” he stammered, pressing Thomas’s hip and hand in the motion that moved the paddle, which in turn moved the boat. Thomas let Jimmy guide him, an intoxicating experience that made it hard to breathe. It was something almost magical, in the low light together, moving as one and propelling the boat along. Jimmy wondered what Thomas would do if he pulled him  _ back _ , instead; flush against Jimmy’s own body.

Only when Jimmy realised that his eyes were fixed on Thomas’s arse did he step sharply away, overcome with a sudden attack of nerves. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Well, I, th-think you’ve got it. I don’t know it so well anyway.”

“Then you’re a very good teacher,” Thomas said lightly, a small smile playing on his lips as Jimmy stepped alongside him, though he didn’t look at Jimmy. Instead, Thomas kept his eyes on the shoreline as he went on sculling. Something about the physical effort, the way Thomas’s body swayed with the motion, was transfixing. For long moments, as the last evening light bled out of the world, Jimmy just watched him. His dark fringe had fallen over his forehead in the exertion, and as Thomas was too preoccupied to brush it aside, it remained there, shading one eye. Jimmy found himself sorry for the way Thomas’s Indian coat concealed the flex of his muscles as he rowed.

“Suits you,” he said quietly, without any prior thought that he was about to speak.

“Pardon?” Thomas asked, looking up at him.

“I said it suits you,” Jimmy repeated boldly, before tempering it with: “Y’know, because you’re also a strange old man who likes to smoke.”

“Cheers, I’m sure.”

Jimmy was about to respond when he noticed Jiāng Mǐn stirring, and snapped his mouth shut.

Jiāng Mǐn sat up and blinked at them. “ _ What _ ?” He glanced at his father and said something involving his father’s name that sounded exasperated. The old man opened one eye and chuckled to himself, a sly smile on his face when he closed both eyes again.

Standing up, Jiāng Mǐn took the paddle from Thomas’s control. “He plays at you,” he said. “Rope.” He pointed at the rope coiled neatly at the back of the boat.

Jimmy grabbed it, just for something to do. Once Jiāng Mǐn had steered them to dry land, they swapped over, with Jimmy holding the pole steady while Jiāng Mǐn leaped to shore and tied it swiftly and efficiently around a tree trunk. He jumped back on board and gestured for Thomas and Jimmy to lie down in the bottom of the boat. “ _ Sleep _ ,” he insisted. “Move tomorrow.” With that, he lay down in the middle and twisted his blanket around himself again.

Jimmy was somewhat disappointed that he and Thomas’s alone-time had been interrupted, even though he was relieved that they were no longer in charge of a boat neither had any idea how to navigate and only the loosest idea how to move. He and Thomas ended up on either side of Jiāng Mǐn, rolled up in their own borrowed blankets. It felt strange to sleep even this far away from Thomas: on the steamer ship, Thomas had been just below Jimmy on the second bunk (and, once, right next to him); and on the train, they had simply slept sitting up, either next to each other or opposite. Jimmy lay flat on his back, staring at the star-spattered sky as he pictured other places he and Thomas had been so near, though he remained mostly stuck on the tiny Downton cot upon which Thomas had kissed him that fateful night.

His best efforts to push away the mixed emotions that event carried were met only with images of his own bedroom back in London, couched in the cluttered luxury he’d bought for himself with his piano repair shop. It was rather nice to imagine Thomas transported back to that comfort, slid beneath silk sheets and the embroidered duvet. The vision improved when he placed himself next to Thomas in the English scene, perhaps reading a magazine while Thomas slept. In his imagination, he was adjusting that same stray lock of hair that had fallen over Thomas’s brow while sculling the boat, then tracing the cut of Thomas’s cheekbones and the angle of his nose, the turn of his chin. He wondered how soft Thomas’s red, red lips would be to touch, which only brought him back to Downton, the cot and the stolen midnight kiss. 

After thrashing through that cycle for a good twenty minutes, Jimmy couldn’t stand it any longer. He sat bolt upright so quickly, the whole boat wobbled with his displaced weight. In the moonlight -- the same moonlight that visited his London flat on the other side of the world -- Jimmy stared over the lump of bedding that made up Jiāng Mǐn, where another ball of fabric shrouded Thomas’s long form. Thomas was rolled over so that his back was facing Jimmy and Jiāng Mǐn, but it was identical to the way Jimmy had pictured him in his own, familiar bed. A hand that defied Jimmy’s penchant for self-control floated over the snoring Jiāng Mǐn, desperate to fix Thomas’s tousled hair with the same familiar touch he’d been imagining for over a quarter of an hour. An age-old adage adapted itself to Jimmy’s purposes, rephrased as:  _ If no one sees me do it, did it really happen at all?  _

The idea made him quake, highlighted by the face of Alfred Nugent stuffed suddenly into his mind’s eye. It was the immediate aftermath of Thomas’s secret kiss, which left him slain by an alternate version of that night in which Alfred had minded his own business -- a version in which Jimmy had awoken to Thomas’s affection under completely different circumstances. If he’d been allowed to fade out of sleep, following the blip of pleasure that had stirred him in the first place, perhaps he might have had a different perception of that moment. Maybe he would have still been as disarmed, but he at least wouldn’t have had to fire off so many shots. Maybe he’d have not broken Thomas’s heart. 

His hand lingered, now much closer to Thomas’s head. Could broken hearts be mended? Even if it was just tied together with a bit of string? Was that enough? The questions pushed his attention downwards, like he was trying to inspect the hole in his chest where his own heart ought to have pulsated. He tried to imagine if a little craft glue could fix the rusted contraption that had long since replaced his. With Thomas’s black hair now wisping at his fingertips, Jimmy liked to think it could. 

A particularly loud snore from Jiāng Mǐn interrupted Jimmy’s growing proximity to Thomas. He jolted back with another movement that rocked the boat. The irrationality of his annoyance towards the oblivious Jiāng Mǐn struck Jimmy squarely in the face, which he only managed to soothe by kicking off his own blanket and crawling like an angry dog around Jiāng Mǐn to crouch above Thomas’s figure. So unlike his usual peacocking, he barely noticed that he’d snagged some of the beading on his coat or that the knees of his trousers were browned with dirt, and instead focused on the fluttering of Thomas’s eyelids as he dreamed hidden dreams Jimmy yearned to pry into. Jimmy’s petty jealousies demanded that anyone who wasn’t he, himself, be banished at once from Thomas’s mind, ignorant of how he’d drawn himself into a situation that exactly mirrored the night Thomas had crept into his Downton garrett. 

Before long, Jimmy found himself chasing after things he never thought he’d want, even back when he’d been at his filthiest low in Lady A’s keeping. Certainly there had been times she had made dirty suggestions about what other handsome men might be dragged into their play, but she’d been just as flippant about pulling pretty women into it as well. None of that had ever nailed Jimmy with the same fear or poignancy that similar desires for Thomas had started to sow within him. Now, he lusted after an intimacy he’d never quite understood before. Whether he was lying gently in Thomas’s arms or riding him like a whore, Jimmy had come to a very real discovery that he’d never wanted to give someone pleasure the way he wanted to give it to Thomas. More than anything, he just wanted to be in his own bed with the other man, whispering sweet nothings while they loved one another.  

_ How the fuck is it _ , Jimmy thought the longer he stared down at the sleeping butler,  _ that I get him halfway around the world, and now all I want is to take him back home with me?  _ He cast a sharp glare down the length of the boat, where Lady Anstruther had done her best to make sleeping on a boat deck ladylike. A sharp spike in anger towards the dowager returned to him, reminding him quite clearly why he’d gambled so much on this crazy adventure in the first place. She looked just as deceptive in slumber as she did whilst awake, every bit the picture of English aristocracy and decorum, yet a spitting asp beneath the velor. It was no wonder he’d grown so bored and hateful of the class system, or that his entire life had been filled to the brim with a sick cocktail of anxiety, apathy and insecurity. Because of goddamn Lady A and the gilded leash she’d hooked around his neck, Jimmy barely even knew how to recognise affection when it was doled out in even the most basic fashion. Because of Lady A, Jimmy was an orphan abandoned in a world that sought to either harden him or take advantage of him -- or worse still, both all at once. 

It was with all this that Jimmy was fueled to make his next move. Bending over Thomas like a man in deep prayer, Jimmy carefully laid a hand on Thomas’s temple, artfully tilting his head so that his lips faced the stars. Then, Jimmy dipped himself further, holding his breath as he dared to bring his mouth just near enough that the tobacco that stained Thomas’s breath tickled Jimmy’s nostrils. It was a noxious tease that did more things to Jimmy than even the most lurid past encounter ever had. Desperate for more, he bowed even further still, his bottom lip just grazing Thomas’s. His eyelids slipped closed.

He felt Thomas's mouth curve into a delicate smile, but the other man did not stir.


	19. Chapter 19

Thomas thought this might be his favourite way to travel yet. The sea was smooth in these shallows, and it was entertaining to watch the shore drifting past from countryside to port and back again. Sometimes other boats overtook them; other times, they themselves floated past moored or slower-moving vessels. Their Chinese hosts were so laid-back that it was difficult not to be relaxed as they bobbed gently up and down on the water. Lady A mostly sat at the front of the boat, staring out ahead. It was difficult to tell whether she was sulking or simply deep in thought, but either way, it kept her quiet. He and Jimmy occasionally -- under close supervision -- helped out with the sculling, though Jimmy seemed to prefer to watch Thomas, smirking, as though it amused him for Thomas to be forced into manual labour. They spent a lot of time chatting with Jiāng Mǐn, too, or at least trying to, so he could practise his English.

All in all, the days were idyllic, and every night, Thomas had beautiful dreams rocked gently into his head by the waves. He dreamed of quiet meadows; of dozens of waltzing couples, many of which were same-sex; of Jimmy teaching him to scull, his hands on Thomas’s hips, and pulling their bodies flush together.

After eight such fantasy-filled nights, Jiāng Mǐn said that they had nearly reached their destination. Thomas was quite excited to see Hong Kong. The questions of how it would be different to the cities they had visited so far, and how it might be similar, entertained him for that whole last morning. He struck a deal with Jiāng Mǐn for the two Chinese men to delay their arrival on the shore for a few hours, in order to keep an eye on Lady Anstruther while he and Jimmy explored, in exchange for some extra cash. He couched it as needing to make arrangements before the lady could set foot on this new land, but really he just yearned for some private time with Jimmy.

During this conversation, Jimmy was silent. He stared down at the water with the kind of small, sweet smile playing on his lips that made Thomas's heart do somersaults, and he ended up paying twice what he might have through sheer distraction.

Their hosts pulled them up at a vast beach, with Jiāng Mǐn leaping off the back of the sampan to secure a rope around a tree stump that was beginning to rot. Thomas didn't remember Hong Kong having such a long beach; the sand stretched further than he could see, right around the curve of the shore.

“It doesn't look how I imagined Hong Kong would look,” Thomas said, finally giving voice to the thought just before he and Jimmy jumped ashore.

Jiāng Mǐn gave him a wide, guileless smile. “Not Hong Kong. Cox’s Bazar.”

Thomas and Jimmy, perched on the end of the boat, both turned to stare at him.

“You said Hong Kong,” said Jimmy.

“No,” Jiāng Mǐn said, with genuine confusion. “ _ You _ said.”

At that moment, Thomas realised their mistake.  _ They _ had said they were going to Hong Kong; Jiāng Mǐn never had. The Chinese family were simply going in the same direction and been willing to take them along some of the way. They would have to find another way to continue to Hong Kong.

When Thomas glanced at Jimmy, he was looking a little sheepish. It had, after all, been he who had led the initial bargain with the boat owners. Thomas threw him a wink to show that there were no hard feelings.

“What dashing adventurers you are,” drawled Lady A sarcastically, without looking around. She was still sat under the boat's canopy, having been informed by Thomas of the plan to leave her there for a few hours.

“We're dashing alright,” Jimmy retorted, and hopped neatly off the boat, landing with a splash in the shallow water. His trousers were rolled up just above his knees -- just about high enough to avoid getting wet.

Thomas grinned at the pun as he followed, excited to spend a few hours with his best friend without the pressure of Anstruther. Thomas's trousers refused to stay put when he rolled them, so he had to hold onto the hems to stop them falling down. The two of them waded slowly towards the shore. The beach was endless and shining gold, sliding gracefully out of the water ahead of them.

The water was at mid-calf by now, and required them to walk more slowly to avoid splashing.

“Thomas?” said Jimmy.

“Mm?” Thomas responded absently.

Jimmy's hand suddenly shot out and grabbed Thomas's wrist, giving it a yank so that the fabric in Thomas's hand slipped through his fingers and fell into the shallows. The material darkened immediately as Thomas stared, open-mouthed with disbelief. Then he looked up at Jimmy, who was smirking, a mischievous challenge in his eyes.

“You little…” he growled -- and Jimmy was making a run for it, leaving Thomas with the after-impression of his smile, like the image burned into one's retinas after looking at the sun too long. Thomas gave chase and they raised curtains of water droplets all around them. Jimmy kept changing direction to confuse him, which worked, but also slowed him down, so that when Jimmy finally abandoned the water and made a break for it up the beach, Thomas was able to cut the corner and gain ground.

He leapt, slamming into Jimmy and knocking him to the sand. He wound up sitting on Jimmy's thighs and without hesitation, he leaned forward and tickled Jimmy mercilessly. Jimmy shrieked and laughed and gasped apologies, desperately trying to protect his most ticklish spots.

But suddenly he had the upper hand, and Thomas was beneath him; Jimmy had fought back, prodding Thomas's sides. This had distracted Thomas for a split second as his arms jerked back to cover them, enough for Jimmy to roll them over. So now Jimmy was on top but Thomas wasn't to be subdued without a fight. He kept on tickling Jimmy, even as Jimmy tickled him back, even as both of them struggled to breathe through their laughter.

Jimmy fumbled and grabbed for Thomas. All at once, Thomas's wrists were pressed against the soft sand by his shoulders. He was pinned like a butterfly in a case. He stopped struggling at once and avoided looking at Jimmy, afraid that the slightest stimulation would get him hard, afraid that Jimmy would read the emotions in his eyes. The sound of Jimmy breathing through parted lips was all he could hear above the pounding in his ears.

Thomas forced a chuckle, pretending this was still a funny game. Why wasn't Jimmy letting him go? Why was he still holding him down and leaning close?

“Ha,” Jimmy said unconvincingly. “I win.” He swallowed audibly before dropping one shoulder and rolling to lie next to Thomas.

Thomas felt the loss of his closeness acutely, even as he breathed a sigh of relief.

As Jimmy settled, one arm flung out and came to rest crossed over one of Thomas's. His fingers brushed Thomas's hip. “Good idea, to get 'em to babysit. Means we get some time… some time shot of the lady.”

When Thomas looked at him, Jimmy had his head turned and a dangerously soft expression on his face. His golden hair echoed the colour of the sand. Thomas looked away quickly.

It was a short-lived respite from the confusing depth of emotion in Jimmy’s eyes; a moment later, his gaze had snapped back to Jimmy’s face after Jimmy’s hand had slipped into his. They stared at each other, joined at that one point only. Jimmy had a small, nervous smile on his lips.

Thomas’s heart was racing again.

“Thomas…” Jimmy said quietly. “I think I’m ready to go home now. I -- I want to take you home with me.”

Thomas rubbed his eyes with both hands, releasing himself from Jimmy’s grip. Hope and despair sloshed around inside him, making him feel almost nauseous. Why did Jimmy have to keep doing this to him? Why did he have to confuse things between them, constantly saying and doing these little things to make Thomas hope? Thomas sat up, glancing around at their private section of beach. He could just about see distant figures on the tops of the dunes behind them, but they were too far to make out clearly, and they had run far enough for the sampan carrying Lady A to be out of sight beyond the curve of the land.

“Thomas?” Jimmy had sat up too; Thomas was looking out at the ocean with his legs in front of him but he could see Jimmy still watching him, sitting on his heels and facing almost the opposite direction. Jimmy’s right hand landed on Thomas’s thigh, making him take a sharp breath. “When I say I want to take you home with me… what I mean is…”

“ _ What _ ?” Thomas demanded sharply, suddenly sick of signs and uncertainty. He needed Jimmy to say it; he was going to  _ make _ Jimmy say that he had meant it as  _ friends _ , obviously, that that was  _ all they were _ and  _ all Jimmy wanted _ and all he ever  _ would _ want so long as they lived. “What  _ exactly _ were you trying to say?”

“I was  _ trying _ to say that I want…” Jimmy began in a small but determined voice -- but he never finished the sentence. At least, not in words. Instead, he leaned in carefully, the pressure of his hand on Thomas’s thigh increasing as his weight shifted forwards, and then they were kissing lightly, with parted lips and the barest hint of tongues.

Thomas couldn’t contain his smile, even as they kissed, at the thought that Jimmy had  _ started _ this, he  _ wanted _ it -- he wanted to take Thomas home with him -- all these months, maybe even years, of Thomas wondering and suppressing the thoughts and telling himself over and over that Jimmy didn’t --

Thomas broke away as laughter bubbled up, hiding his face in his hands as he said, “Oh, thank god. I thought I was goin’ round the twist.”

“What?” asked Jimmy blankly.

“You’re not exactly the subtlest of creatures,” Thomas told him fondly, placing his hand over Jimmy’s on his thigh.

His love for Jimmy felt like it was shining from every pore; he felt radiant with it and with his own happiness at not having to tamp it down any longer. He prayed he wasn’t going to cry.

Jimmy had opened his mouth, then closed it again, and now he said, “How long have you known?”

“I never really  _ knew _ ,” Thomas explained, his thumb stroking Jimmy’s hand as he marvelled anew and unabashed at the colour of his skin, the shape of his forearm. “Kept tellin’ myself I was wrong, I had to be wrong. And you just kept makin’ it harder and harder to believe it, the further we went.”

“S’pose I’m an open book where you’re concerned,” Jimmy grumbled, his eyes dropping to their hands.

“Hardly.” Thomas squeezed his hand briefly and said, “Jimmy?” to make him look up. When he did, Thomas added, his insecurities roiling again in his stomach, “D’you think you could do that again?”

Jimmy grinned at him and planted his mouth on Thomas’s for one mockingly loud kiss. “There, soppy!” he said, nudging the heel of his hand against Thomas’s shoulder. “Happy?!”

Thomas laughed, and covered his mouth. He nodded. “Extremely.”

Jimmy was beaming at him, his eyes crinkled at the corners because of the sun. He was radiant. “Soppy,” he said again, more softly.

“Am not,” Thomas protested, his smile not dimming in the slightest.

“Are too,” Jimmy insisted, poking Thomas’s sides to make him squirm. “You’re so soppy you might as well be a girl.”

“I am  _ not _ a girl,” Thomas said firmly, but the stern effect was ruined somewhat by the fact that he still couldn’t control his smile.

“Believe me, I know that,” Jimmy said wryly. “Might’ve saved me a whole lot of trouble if you were. Wouldn’t have got myself so tangled up an’...”

“So what changed?”

“Well, you put that Indian coat on and you looked so hot I couldn’t tell myself you didn’t any more.”

Thomas felt his cheeks heat up even more than they already were in the bright sunshine, and from the smirk on Jimmy’s face, he’d known the response he was going to get. “We should get going,” he said quietly. “We don’t want to waste our head start.”

Jimmy scrambled up at once and reached a hand down to help tug Thomas to his feet. They bumped shoulders as they turned to walk up and along the beach together. Thomas wanted to reach for Jimmy’s hand, but there were people on the ridge ahead of them, and he didn’t want to risk it. Instead, he lit a cigarette, and they passed it back and forth.

“I’d like for us to be clear with each other,” he said after a few minutes. “So… I’m still in love with you, and I want us to be together, properly. I can see if there’s any houses in London that are looking for staff…”

Jimmy looked as uncomfortable as he ever did during emotional conversations, but he pressed on bravely: “And I… You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, and I want us to be together too.” He examined the end of the cigarette, his mouth squashed to one side. Thomas hadn’t missed that he’d said  _ person _ , rather than  _ man _ , and was touched by the implication. “I think you should… come live with me. I was thinkin’, the shop could expand, fix clocks too. Or I could teach you about fixin’ pianos; it ain’t so difficult, really.”

“Thinking since when?” Thomas reclaimed the shortened cigarette and took a drag.

Jimmy gave him a shy glance from beneath his eyelashes. “Ever since I got there, really.”

This came as a surprise to Thomas. He knew Jimmy hadn’t stepped straight out of the Downton Abbey dining room into his current West End lodgings, although Jimmy hadn’t given him any more details than that initial, rather cryptic remark of:  _ ‘I found me footing with a little derrin’-do.’ _ It implied, in any case, that it had been a couple of months at least. And yet Thomas had still been enough on Jimmy’s mind then for Jimmy to imagine a place in his life for him -- despite the fact that his letters had been so vague and rambling, Thomas hadn’t even realised what Jimmy was doing for a living until he had showed up back at Downton Abbey in need of Thomas’s help. He flicked the end of the cigarette away with a smile.

After ten minutes or so, they began to approach a wide access point through the dunes. A steady stream of merchants and traders made their way up the beach towards it, dragging their merchandise on sleds over the sand or carrying it on their backs. A couple tried to interest Thomas and Jimmy in what they had for sale, but they ignored these attempts.

On the other side of the dunes, they came upon the bazar itself; a bustling marketplace overflowing with silks, fruit, bread, and a bewildering array of decorations and books. The sounds of stall owners shouting up their products in several languages, the chattering of the patrons and the lowing of cattle from somewhere behind the market assaulted their ears in a indecipherable stream. After a brief consultation with Jimmy, Thomas spent several minutes tracking down someone with good English, catching the attention of a young boy and instructing him to watch out for Anstruther and to give her a note. Jimmy had written the note while the two were talking, a missive to remind Anstruther what they had on her and tell her that they were leaving her. Jimmy had grumbled that they didn’t owe her any explanations, but Thomas felt she needed one last reminder of the admittedly tenuous power they held over her.

As the boy ran away, Thomas turned to Jimmy. “Home, then?”

Jimmy grinned at him, breathtakingly familiar and strange in the middle of this unknown world. “Home. But first, a little adventure along the way.”


	20. Chapter 20

“ _...a belief which, as Poirot pointed out to me, is contrary to all Egyptian belief and thought. _ ”

Jimmy listened to Thomas closing the book and placing it on the nightstand. He felt Thomas’s fingers sink into his curly blond hair, scratching his scalp lightly with blunt fingernails and smiled. The back of his head was resting on Thomas’s stomach, and his eyes were closed. “Sunday mornings are my favourite,” he murmured.

“Why’s that?”

“‘Cause the shop’s shut and we get a lie in doin’ this,  _ obviously, _ ” Jimmy said impatiently. He opened his eyes long enough to give Thomas a scathing look, to see Thomas smiling down at him fondly.

After hitching and train-riding and canal-boating all the way to Shanghai, they had spent Christmas in the rather unChristian city, before making their meandering way back to England. The journey home had taken over two months, they had been living above Jimmy’s shop together for another month, and still Thomas only seemed to respond to Jimmy’s impatience with affection.

“Is it time for scrambled eggs on toast?” Thomas suggested.

Jimmy shifted at once, twisting to press a kiss to Thomas’s bare stomach before he stood up. “I’ll cook, you wash up,” he said, pulling on his longjohns followed by his trousers and undershirt. Thomas watched him dressing attentively (though not  _ quite _ as attentively as he had watched him undress the night before) until Jimmy threw Thomas’s own shirt in his face and left the room, snorting with laughter, to get breakfast started.

He was pushing the eggs around a frying pan when Thomas wandered into the kitchen, still in his short-sleeved undershirt with the newspaper in his hands, and leaned against a cupboard.

“I hope you didn’t go out so undressed,” Jimmy said. “This is a nice neighbourhood.”

Thomas lifted an eyebrow at him, conveying very clearly that he knew exactly how little Jimmy cared about  _ nice neighbourhoods _ . Jimmy knew he would have pulled his coat on right over his undershirt, in any case. Thomas’s gaze dropped back to the newspaper and suddenly he froze, his eyes wide.

“What?” Jimmy asked, scraping the scrambled eggs onto the toast he’d made in their new electric toaster, sharing it (mostly) evenly between their two plates.

Thomas came closer and read: “Missing Dowager emerges in Hong Kong.”

Jimmy stared at him, a sick feeling in the back of his throat. “That’s…” He watched Thomas’s eyes flickering rapidly over the words, waiting for him to summarise the article. His heart was hammering as if he’d run a hundred miles in the last few seconds, as all his repressed fears of the last months rose up in a wave.

To his surprise, Thomas laughed. “She’s only gone and moved to Hong Kong. Bought a house there and everything.”

“She’s  _ moved to Hong Kong _ ?” Jimmy repeated, and pulled at the edge of the newspaper to look at the article.

“Plenty of jewellery over there,” Thomas said. His voice sounded strange so Jimmy looked at his face. He was frowning.

“But this means she ain’t gonna bother me any more,” Jimmy said, right on the edge of relief but afraid of what Thomas might have seen that he hadn’t.

“Just doesn’t seem fair,” Thomas said. “She gets to just… carry on. We took her halfway ‘round the world and hardly inconvenienced her at all.”

All of Jimmy’s fears regarding Lady Anstruther were swept away in the tide of emotion he felt then for Thomas. They were standing less than a foot away from each other, but it was too much, far too much. Jimmy plucked the newspaper out of Thomas’s hands and ran his own hands up Thomas’s arms, his thumbs caressing the fading scars on Thomas’s forearms. He pulled Thomas tightly into his arms, squashing his face against his neck. “I love you, you mardy bum,” he muttered against Thomas’s skin, the truth of it almost painful in its intensity, especially when Thomas wrapped Jimmy up in his firm embrace. “I really, really do.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've all enjoyed this wild journey with us and found this a satisfactory ending! Do let us know what you thought ^..^


End file.
